FRANCES SMITH FOSTER is a Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Women's Studies, the former director of the Emory Institute for Women's Studies, and the current chair of the English Department. She has received fellowships from institutions including Fulbright, the Harvard Divinity School, the W. E. B. DuBois Institute at Harvard, and the International Theological Center. Her research affiliations include the Brandeis Feminist Sexual Ethics Project and the Emory Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Religion.

She has authored or edited fourteen books including Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1740-1892; A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader; and Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. Collaborative projects include La Familia En Africa Y La Diaspora Africana/The Family in Africa and the African Diaspora, Norton Anthology of African American Literature, The Oxford Guide to African American Literature, and Norton Critical Edition of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.