Jan Whitt was a professor of journalism, literature and media studies. She taught undergraduate and graduate courses in American and British literature, literary journalism, media studies, popular culture, professional writing and women’s studies at CU from 1988 to 2020.
Having begun her career as a reporter and editor in Texas, Whitt was the author of Dangerous Dreams: Essays on American Film and Television, Rain on a Strange Roof: A Southern Literary Memoir, Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: Hazel Brannon Smith and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Settling the Borderland: Other Voices in Literary Journalism, Women in Journalism: A New History and Allegory and the Modern Southern Novel.
She held a BA in English and journalism and an MA in English from Baylor University, and a PhD in English from the University of Denver.
Jan Whitt died in September of 2023.