Co-Director
Project Director Teaching Hard Literature
Associate Professor
434-243-8932
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
- “‘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.
- “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
- “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.
- “Academic Mothers and their Feminist Daughters: A Remix” African American Review 40(2006): 35-38.
- “Working Moms in Their Own Words” Black Issues in Higher Education, March 28, 2002.
Reviews
- Kirby Farrell. Post-Traumatic Culture: Injury and Interpretation in the Nineties. Studies in the Novel. 33.2 (2001): 232-234.
- Ruthie Bolton. Gal: A True Life . African American Review. 30.3 (1996): 500-502.
Conferences and Invited Lectures (selected)
- “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.
- TEDx Talk, “Daenerys Targaryen Walks Into A Starbucks” TEDxUVA Conference, Charlottesville, VA, March 21, 2015.
- Moderator and Chair. “Shamefully Delicious: The (Critical) Pleasures of ABC’s Scandal” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, October 2014.
- “Game of Thrones Comes to UVA” with HBO Program Director Christopher Gary, UVa Club of Los Angeles, November 2014.
- “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.
- “Performances of Black Cultural Trauma and Memory” Roundtable discussant. MLA: Modern Languages Association Convention, January 2011.
- “Academic Mothers and their Feminist Daughters: a remix” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, November 2005.
- “Re-embodying American Slavery” Legacies of Slavery in American Life: Politics, Education, and the Arts Symposium, Brown University, October 2005.
- “Immortality, Reincarnation, and the Traumatic Slave Past” Modern Language Association Convention, December 2004.
- “Simulating American Slavery in Wax and Deed” Modern Language Association Convention, December 2004.
- “Teaching the History of American Slavery” Lecturer, March 2003.
- “Teaching the History of American Slavery” Workshop Facilitator, November 2002.
- Virginia 2020 Women Writers of Vision Series, Respondent, March 2002.
- “Uncharted Terrain: Black Feminist Mothers and Their Academic Daughters” Modern Language Association Convention, December 2001.
- “Immortality, Reincarnation and the Traumatic Slave Past” American Women Writers of Color Conference, October 2001.
- “Slave Girl, Interrupted: Trauma and Quilting African American Women’s Subjectivity” English Department Faculty Conference, October 2001.
- “Quilts and Creation” University of Virginia ’s Young Women’s Leadership Program, April 2001.
- “Knowing Slavery Inside and Out” Montpelier Slave Commemoration, April 2001.
- “Fantastic Voyage: Returning to the Traumatic Past in Haile Gerima’s Sankofa” Real to Reel: Black Life in Cinema Conference, April 2001.
- “Sankofa and the Question of Film as Slave Narrative” Texts and Contexts: English Department Faculty Conference, March 2001.
- “Trauma, Time Travel and Narrative Epistemologies in Octavia Butler’s Kindred” Narrative: An International Conference, March 2001.
- “Reclamations of the Traumatic Past: Bodily Referents and the Epistemology of Slavery” MELUS: Multi Ethnic Literature of the United States Conference, March 2001.
Honors
- 2015 All-University Teaching Award
- 2012 Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellow
- 2012 Recognition by I.M.P for the positive IMPact I have had on University Students experience
- 2007 Recognition of Teaching and Service, The Seven Society
- An honor awarded by one of the University’s secret societies
- 2006 University of Virginia Summer Grant (declined)
- 2006 University of Virginia Small Grant
- 2006 Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Support
- 2005 University of Virginia Summer Grant
- 2005 University of Virginia Small Grant
- 2004 University of Virginia Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Award
- 2004 Mead Honored Faculty - Awarded in recognition of outstanding teaching and involvement with students
- 2004 University of Virginia Summer Grant
- 2004 University of Virginia Small Grant
- 2004 University of Virginia Sesquicentennial Fellowship
- 2003 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship
- 2003 AAUW American Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined)
- 2003 University of Virginia Summer Grant
- 2003 “Most Influential Educator” Virginia Athletics, Women’s Basketball Team
- 2002 Recognition of Teaching Excellence, The Seven Society - An honor awarded by one of the University of Virginia’s secret societies
- 2002 University of Virginia Summer Grant
- 2001 University of Virginia Summer Grant
- 1999 Advanced Opportunity Dissertation Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- 1996 College of Letters and Science Teaching Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison , competitive award for graduate student teaching
- 1992-1995 Advanced Opportunity Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Teaching Experience/Courses Taught
- Game of Thrones
- African American Speculative Fiction
- Fictions of Black Identity
- African American Literature II
- African American Literature I
- Introduction to African American Literature: The Short Story
- Introduction to Literary Studies: Black Women Writers
- Trauma Theory and African American Literature
- Aesthetics and Politics in African American Literature
- Black Women Writers 1950 to the Present