Center for the Liberal Arts
Headshot CLA program co-director Lisa Woolfork

Lisa Woolfork

Co-Director; Project Director, Teaching Hard Literature; Associate Professor
Phone
(434) 243-8932

Lisa Woolfork serves as the co-director for the Center for Liberal Arts and the project director for Teaching Hard Literature.

Degrees

Ph.D. Wisconsin-Madison, 2000
M.A. Wisconsin-Madison, 1993
B.A. Simmons, 1992

Books

Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture, University of Illinois Press, 2008

Chapters in Anthologies 

  1. “‘This Class of Persons:’ When UVA’s White Supremacist Past Meets Its Future” in Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity. eds Claudrena Harold and Louis Nelson. UVA Press, 2018.
  2. “Looking for Lionel: Making Whiteness and Blackness in All In The Family and The Jeffersons” in African Americans on Television Race-ing for Ratings. Eds. David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero. Praeger: 2013, pages 45-68.

Articles

  1. “I Want To Do Bad Things With You: HBO’s True Blood and Allegories of Miscegenation” Special issue of South Carolina Review, The Spectral South. Summer 2014.
  2. “Academic Mothers and their Feminist Daughters: A Remix” African American Review 40(2006): 35-38.
  3. “Working Moms in Their Own Words” Black Issues in Higher Education, March 28, 2002.

Reviews

  1. Kirby Farrell. Post-Traumatic Culture: Injury and Interpretation in the Nineties. Studies in the Novel. 33.2 (2001): 232-234.
  2. Ruthie Bolton. Gal: A True Life . African American Review. 30.3 (1996): 500-502.

Conferences and Invited Lectures (selected)

  1. “Creating the Visual World of Game of Thrones” with HBO’s Game of Thrones Production Director Deborah Riley, The Smithsonian, Washington, DC, February 26, 2015.
  2. TEDx Talk, “Daenerys Targaryen Walks Into A Starbucks” TEDxUVA Conference, Charlottesville, VA, March 21, 2015.
  3. Moderator and Chair. “Shamefully Delicious: The (Critical) Pleasures of ABC’s Scandal” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, October 2014.
  4. “Game of Thrones Comes to UVA” with HBO Program Director Christopher Gary, UVa Club of Los Angeles, November 2014.
  5. “Walmart and it’s ‘People’: Race, Class and Spectacle in the Digital Age,” Keynote Speaker, Clemson University, Clemson Colloquium on Race & Ethnicity (CCRE) April 10-11, 2014.
  6. “Performances of Black Cultural Trauma and Memory” Roundtable discussant. MLA: Modern Languages Association Convention, January 2011.
  7. “Academic Mothers and their Feminist Daughters: a remix” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, November 2005.
  8. “Re-embodying American Slavery” Legacies of Slavery in American Life: Politics, Education, and the Arts Symposium, Brown University, October 2005.
  9. “Immortality, Reincarnation, and the Traumatic Slave Past” Modern Language Association Convention, December 2004.
  10. “Simulating American Slavery in Wax and Deed” Modern Language Association Convention, December 2004.
  11. “Teaching the History of American Slavery” Lecturer, March 2003.
  12. “Teaching the History of American Slavery” Workshop Facilitator, November 2002.
  13. Virginia 2020 Women Writers of Vision Series, Respondent, March 2002.
  14. “Uncharted Terrain: Black Feminist Mothers and Their Academic Daughters” Modern Language Association Convention, December 2001.
  15. “Immortality, Reincarnation and the Traumatic Slave Past” American Women Writers of Color Conference, October 2001.
  16. “Slave Girl, Interrupted: Trauma and Quilting African American Women’s Subjectivity” English Department Faculty Conference, October 2001.
  17. “Quilts and Creation” University of Virginia ’s Young Women’s Leadership Program, April 2001.
  18. “Knowing Slavery Inside and Out” Montpelier Slave Commemoration, April 2001.
  19. “Fantastic Voyage: Returning to the Traumatic Past in Haile Gerima’s Sankofa” Real to Reel: Black Life in Cinema Conference, April 2001.
  20. “Sankofa and the Question of Film as Slave Narrative” Texts and Contexts: English Department Faculty Conference, March 2001.
  21. “Trauma, Time Travel and Narrative Epistemologies in Octavia Butler’s Kindred” Narrative: An International Conference, March 2001.
  22. “Reclamations of the Traumatic Past: Bodily Referents and the Epistemology of Slavery” MELUS: Multi Ethnic Literature of the United States Conference, March 2001.

Honors 

  1. 2015 All-University Teaching Award
  2. 2012 Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellow
  3. 2012 Recognition by I.M.P for the positive IMPact I have had on University Students experience
  4. 2007 Recognition of Teaching and Service, The Seven Society
  5. An honor awarded by one of the University’s secret societies           
  6. 2006 University of Virginia Summer Grant (declined)           
  7. 2006 University of Virginia Small Grant
  8. 2006 Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Support
  9. 2005 University of Virginia Summer Grant
  10. 2005 University of Virginia Small Grant
  11. 2004 University of Virginia Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Award
  12. 2004 Mead Honored Faculty - Awarded in recognition of outstanding teaching and involvement with students
  13. 2004 University of Virginia Summer Grant
  14. 2004 University of Virginia Small Grant
  15. 2004 University of Virginia Sesquicentennial Fellowship
  16. 2003 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship
  17. 2003 AAUW American Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined)
  18. 2003 University of Virginia Summer Grant
  19. 2003 “Most Influential Educator” Virginia Athletics, Women’s Basketball Team
  20. 2002 Recognition of Teaching Excellence, The Seven Society - An honor awarded by one of the University of Virginia’s secret societies
  21. 2002 University of Virginia Summer Grant
  22. 2001 University of Virginia Summer Grant
  23. 1999 Advanced Opportunity Dissertation Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  24. 1996 College of Letters and Science Teaching Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison , competitive award for graduate student teaching
  25. 1992-1995 Advanced Opportunity Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Teaching Experience/Courses Taught 

  1. Game of Thrones
  2. African American Speculative Fiction
  3. Fictions of Black Identity
  4. African American Literature II
  5. African American Literature I
  6. Introduction to African American Literature: The Short Story
  7. Introduction to Literary Studies: Black Women Writers
  8. Trauma Theory and African American Literature
  9. Aesthetics and Politics in African American Literature
  10. Black Women Writers 1950 to the Present

Publications

  1. Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture: A Unique Study of Slavery Reenactments and Performances in African American Literature and Culture 


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