About

Here’s how to pronounce my name

My research, publications, presentations, and teaching are connected by themes of Black feminism, Black sexuality studies, pop culture, literary studies, and interrogations of sexual violence.

I am an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and Black Queer and Sexuality Studies in the Comparative Women’s Studies Program, part of the Women’s Research and Resource Center established by Dr. Beverly Guy Sheftall, at Spelman College.

Themes of Black feminism, Black sexuality studies, pop culture, literary studies, and interrogations of sexual violence animate my teaching, publications, research, and presentations. I am passionate about feminist pedagogy, media literacy, and the teaching of writing. Prior to joining Spelman College faculty, I served as an Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Irvine and an affiliate faculty member in the Culture and Theory program.

I am a proud alumna of The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, The Ohio State University, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Spelman College, and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Program.

My forthcoming book project, Reconfigurations: Race, Representation, & Sexual Violence, makes interventions in the fields of rape crisis feminism and anti-rape activism, Black feminism, literary criticism, trauma studies, and gender studies.

My interest in literary depictions of Black women’s sexuality and experiences with sexual trauma is also reflected in the research I’ve undertaken with Drs. Suzanne Edwards, Mary Foltz, and Maxine Montgomery’s NEH-funded digitization of Gloria Naylor’s personal archive. My chapter, “Trauma and Arousal in the Archive: Black Women’s Sexuality, Gloria Naylor, and Bailey’s Cafe,” is part of the forthcoming Critical Essays on Gloria Naylor Anthology (University of Mississippi Press). Check out some of my writing without a paywall: See “Being Toward Trauma: Theorizing Post-Violence Sexuality,” published in Rejoinder: An Online Journal Published by the Institute for Research on Women. In “Being,” I complicate linear conceptualizations of recovery from sexual trauma and explore some of the anxieties around time that emerge in discussions of sexual trauma: pre/post, before/after, or victim/survivor.

I am a 2013 cum laude graduate of Spelman College. My mother, Deborah Walker-Little, is a graduate of the Class of 1975. My great-grandmother, Ida Barkley Brogsdale, was a graduate of Spelman Seminary’s 1903 English Preparatory Department. While teaching at public research universities was rewarding, and my presence on campus was a lifeline for the racial, ethnic, and gender minority students who relied on me, I am thrilled to have found my way home.

Research Interests: