{{Short description|American author, feminist and African American literature critic}} {{Notability|academics|date=February 2017}} '''Renate "Rennie" Marie Simson''' (March 13, 1934 – February 19, 2017)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/renate-simson-obituary?pid=184195756|title=Renate M. Simson|date=21 February 2017 |publisher=Legacy|accessdate=21 July 2019}}</ref> was an American author and professor of African-American literature and writing. Her work has been influential in African American literature and identity studies. She wrote an essay on Black women's sexuality and identity, ''The Afro-American Female: The Historical Context of the Construction of Sexual Identity''.<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory|author=Nicholson, L.J.|date=1997|volume=1|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9780415917612|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EcgSDuc2bWQC&pg=PA178|page=178|accessdate=2017-01-25}}</ref><ref name="google2">{{cite book|title=Toward a Feminist Theory of the State|author=MacKinnon, C.A.|date=1989|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674896468|url=https://archive.org/details/towardfeministth0000mack|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/towardfeministth0000mack/page/282 282]|accessdate=2017-01-25}}</ref><ref>Hames-Garcia, Michael [https://books.google.com/books?id=sSbcqNyYPYEC&dq=rennie+simson&pg=PA207 “Can Queer Theory be critical?”], ''New Critical theory: essays on liberation''; accessed February 27, 2017.</ref>
Her work posited that victimized black women often avoided intimacy altogether which affected their sexual identity causing them to become self-reliant.<ref name="google3">{{cite book|title=Changing Woman: A History of Racial Ethnic Women in Modern America|author=Anderson, K.|date=1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198022138|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EW5IWiDfNksC&pg=PA172|page=172|accessdate=2017-01-25}}</ref>
She worked as the English department at SUNY Morrisville for several years. She published more than 30 articles and chapters and presented at over 50 conferences throughout in the United States and Austria.<ref name="syr">{{cite web|url=http://as-cascade.syr.edu/profiles/pages/simson-renate.html|publisher=as-cascade.syr.edu|title=faculty profiles redirect|accessdate=2017-01-25}}</ref> She pioneered a study abroad program focusing on the Austrian African Diaspora in Austria with the University of Graz.<ref>Simson Renate and Holly, "The African diaspora and Austria", The Department of African American Studies Newsletter 2007–2008, p. 20.</ref> She was department chair of the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Burke |first1=Michael |title=Syracuse University professor in the African American Studies department dies |url=http://dailyorange.com/2017/02/syracuse-university-professor-in-the-african-american-studies-department-dies/ |access-date=24 September 2021 |work=The Daily Orange |date=22 February 2017}}</ref>
==Death== Simson died on February 19, 2017.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.syr.edu/2017/02/aas-professor-renate-rennie-simson-remembered-for-her-many-contributions|title=AAS Professor Renate 'Rennie' Simson Remembered for Her Many Contributions|last=HomanRodoski|first=Kelly|date=2017-02-23|publisher=Syracuse University|accessdate=2017-02-25}}</ref>
==Publications== ===Books=== * ''Will the Real America Please Stand Up'' - 2008 <!-- ISSN/ISBN, publisher needed -->
===Papers=== *Afro-American Literature of the 19th Century: A Focus for the 80's - Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Northeast Regional Conference on English <ref name="nla">{{cite book|url=http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/5391131|publisher=catalogue.nla.gov.au|title=Afro-American Literature of the 19th Century: A Focus for the 80s/Rennie Simson | National Library of Australia|year=1980|accessdate=2017-01-25}}</ref> *The Unsung Past: Afro-American Women Writers of 19th Century - Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (69th, San Francisco, CA, November 22–24, 1980) <ref name="nla2">{{cite book|url=http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/5378334|publisher=catalogue.nla.gov.au|title=The Unsung Past: Afro-American Women Writers of 19th Century / Renate Simson | National Library of Australia|year=1979|accessdate=2017-01-25}}</ref> *Politics and the race issue as presented in the works of Afro American women writers of the 19th century (Afro scholar working papers) - 1982
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Simson, Renate}} Category:Syracuse University faculty Category:African-American non-fiction writers Category:American non-fiction writers Category:Black studies scholars Category:State University of New York at Morrisville faculty Category:1934 births Category:2017 deaths Category:20th-century African-American people Category:21st-century African-American people