Keith Miller researches and teaches the rhetoric and songs of the civil rights movement. He is the author of the books, "Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Great, Final Speech" and "Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources," the latter of which was favorably reviewed in The Washington Post and is widely cited. His essays on Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson, Frederick Douglass, C.L. Franklin, and Fannie Lou Hamer have appeared in many collections and leading academic journals.

His essay “Second Isaiah Lands in Washington, D.C.: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ as Biblical Narrative and Biblical Hermeneutic” was awarded Best Essay of the Year in Rhetoric Review in 2007. His co-edited books include "Selected Essays of Jim W. Corder" (with James Baumlin), "Beyond PostProcess and Postmodernism" (with Theresa Enos), and "New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers in the U.S." (with Kevin Everod Quashie and Joyce Lausch).