Managing Editor, Negro Quarterly (1942-1943)
Cook, Merchant Marine (1943-1945)
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Letters (1955-1957)
Professor, Bard College (1958-1961)
Alexander White Visiting Professor of Literature, University of Chicago (1961)
Visiting Scholar, Rutgers University (1962-1964)
Fellow in American Studies, Yale University (1964)
Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, New York University (1970-1980)