Faculty

Lovalerie King

Assistant Professor of English

Contact:
116 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802
Office Phone: 814-863-2178
luk13@psu.edu

Office Hours:
Tuesday 12:45-1:45 and Tuesday/Thursday 10-11

Lovalerie King is Assistant Professor of English and affiliate faculty in Women's Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Her areas of expertise include African American literary history, African American culture and legal discourse, black women authors, and black feminist thought and theory. She is the author of A Students' Guide to African American Literature (2003), Race, Theft and Ethics: Property Matters in African American Literature (2007), and The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston (2008). She has co-edited James Baldwin and Toni Morrison: Comparative Critical and Theoretical Essays (2006) and New Essays on the African American Novel: from Hurston and Ellison to Morrison and Whitehead (2008). She has contributed numerous essays, reviews, and articles to journals, essay collections, and literary and cultural reference volumes. Her ongoing projects include an autobiography and a co-edited project examining the relationship between African American cultural production and legal discourse. She is a member of PSU English Department's American Women Writers Workshop. She holds a B.A. from Michigan State University, an M.A. from Emory University (with certification in Women's Studies), and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (with a major in African American Literature and a minor in theory).

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Books

  • Co-edited with Linda F. Selzer, New Essays on the African American Novel: from Hurston and Ellison to Morrison and Whitehead, Palgrave (June 2008).
  • The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. Cambridge (fall 2008).
  • Race, Theft, and Ethics: Property Matters in African American Literature. LSU (2007).
  • Co-edited with Lynn Orilla Scott. James Baldwin and Toni Morrison: Comparative Critical and Theoretical Essays. Palgrave, 2006. 312 pages.
  • A Students’ Guide to African American Literature, 1760 to the Present. Foreword by Trudier Harris-Lopez. Peter Lang, 2003. 219 pages. 

 

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Selected Chapters, Essays, and Articles

  • Reference articles on Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, and A Raisin in the Sun. Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Columbia UP, 2007. Approximately 2000 words.
  • “Resistance, Reappropriation, and Reconciliation: The Blues and Flying Africans in Gayl Jones’s Song for Anninho.” After the Pain: Critical Essays on Gayl Jones, ed. Fiona Mills and Keith Mitchell. Peter Lang, 2006. 241-257. Reprinted from Callaloo. Volume 27, No. 3 (Summer 2004).
  • “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” In American History through Literature, 1820-1870, edited by Janet Gabler-Hover and Robert Sattelmeyer, pp. 554-560. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006.
  • “Henry Lowington Blakely, II.” The Chicago Black Renaissance. Dictionary of        Literary Biography. Ed. Steve Tracy. Forthcoming. 3000 words.
  •  “African American Womanism from Zora Neale Hurston to Alice Walker.” (Chapter) The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel, ed. Maryemma Graham. 233-252. 2004.
  •  “Counterdiscourses on the Racialization of Theft and Morality in Douglass's 1845 Narrative and Jacobs's Incidents.” MELUS 28.4 (Winter 2003): 54-82.        
  •  “Alice Walker,” “Gwendolyn Brooks,” “The Color Purple,” “Middle Passage,” and “Beloved,” for Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African American Writers, ed. Wilfred Samuels. 500-1500 words each. Forthcoming.
  • “The Black Book,” “Flying Africans,” “Toni Morrison as Editor,” “Beloved”          and      related articles. The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia, ed. Elizabeth Beaulieu.      Greenwood Press, 2002. Pages 52, 55-61, 64-66, 72, 75, 83, 98-99, 109-112, 122-124, 135-136, 215-216, 248, 251, 268-269, 299, 307-308, and 333-334.
  • “The Birth of a Nation,” “Slave Revolts,” “Theft,” and “Whoopin.'“ Companion to Southern Literature, ed. Joseph M. Flora and Lucinda MacKethan. LSU Press, 2001. 10 pages.
  • “The Desire/Authority Nexus in Contemporary African American Women’s    Drama.” Black Women Playwrights: Visions on the American Stage, ed. Carol P.      Marsh-Lockett. Garland Press, 1999. 114-130.
  • “The Disruption of Formulaic Discourse: Writing Resistance and Truth in Beloved.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s Beloved, ed. Barbara Solomon. G.K. Hall, 1998. 272-283.
  • “J. California Cooper,” “Alexis DeVeaux,” “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” “Adrienne Kennedy,” “Lesbian Literature,” and “Lesbians.” The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, ed. William L. Andrews, Frances S. Foster and Trudier Harris. 1997. 173-174, 212-213, 306, 418-419, 431-433, and 433-434.

 

Selected Book Reviews

  • Kevin Bell. Ashes Taken for Fire: Aesthetic Modernism and the Critique of Identity. African American Review. Forthcoming.
  • Eithne Quinn. Nuthin' but a “g” thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap. African American Review. 40:3 (Summer/Fall 2006): 610-12.
  • Paula Massood, Black City Cinema. African American Review(Summer/Fall, 2003): 165-167.
  • Alice Randall, The Wind Done Gone. CLA Journal. September 2002. 2000 words.
  • (With Erin King) “A Healing Romance for the Plague Years.” Pearl Cleage, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. Callaloo25:2 (Summer 2002): 687-693.
  • Selected Works of Edythe Mae Gordon. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Lorraine Elena Roses. African American Review, 32:2 (Summer 1998), 360-62.
  • Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar, Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women, African American Review, 31:3 (Fall 1997), 542-45.

 

Selected Presentations 

  • Paid, invited speaker: “Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone.” Speculative Histories of the American South Conference. Chapel Hill, NC. November, 2007.
  • Invited speaker (Respondent): “The Feminist Critique.” Callaloo’s birthday celebration. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. October 25, 2007.
  • “Forms of Neo-Slavery in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower,” ASALH Conference, Charlotte, NC. October 5, 2007.
  • Closing Plenary Speaker: James Baldwin Conference, Queens College, London, UK, June 30, 2007.
  • “James Baldwin and Toni Morrison in Dialogue,” James Baldwin Conference,   Queens College, London, UK, June 28-30, 2007.
  • Moderator: CLR James and Frank Yerby Panel. American Literature AssociationConference, Boston, Massachusetts. May 2007.
  • “From Bambara’s The Black Woman to Neal’s New Black Man.” College Language Association Conference, Miami, Florida, April 2007.     
  • “Preparing a Classic for Mass Consumption: The Oprahfication of Their Eyes Were Watching God.” College Language Association Conference. April 2006,     Birmingham, Alabama.
  • “African American Literature’s Critique of American Law.” Twentieth Century Literature Association Conference, Louisville, Kentucky. February 2005.
  • “Sexual Reconstructions in Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone.” American Literature Association Conference, May 26-29, 2005, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • “Politics and ‘The Pocketbook Game’ in Alice Childress’s Like One of the Family,” Modern Language Association Meeting. Panel: Twentieth-Century American Literature: Humor and Social Change. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. December 2004.
  • Keynote Address, “Celebrating Scholarly Engagement, Career Achievement, and         Personal Enrichment.” SROP/McNair Fifteenth Alumni Reunion, Michigan State University (The Lansing Center, Lansing, Michigan), August 14, 2004.
  • Black Studies Roundtable. Teaching African American Literature. The College Language Association Annual Convention. Nashville, Tennessee. April 2004.
  • Moderator, George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American     Poetry Panel on Black Women Poets. American Literature Association     Conference, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 2003.
  • “Missing Resistance in the Film Version of Beloved.” College Language Association Annual Meeting. Washington, DC. April 23-27, 2003.
  • Paid Speaker: “Writing Against the Grain: Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Black History Month Festival. University of Massachusetts-Lowell. February 7, 2003.
  • Respondent for Eliza Richards (Boston University/English), “Intelligibility in George Moses Horton’s Animal Poems”; David A. Davis (UNC-Chapel Hill/English), “Rita Dove and the Irrational History of Slavery.” George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry Conference. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. April 5, 2002.
  • “Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Activist and Writer.” Paid speaker. Lowell Women's History Conference, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, November 1, 2000.
  • Organizer and Co-Facilitator. “Queer Texts in the Classroom: A Forum.” Center for the Improvement of Teaching, University of Massachusetts-Boston. October 23, 2000.
  • “Theft, Race, and Morality: the Counter-Discourse in African American Literature,” Panel on Racializing Crime and Criminalizing Race, MELUS Conference, New Orleans, March 2000.
  • Roundtable discussion, “Postcolonial Pedagogies: Problems of Contexts and Close Readings,” Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, California, December 28, 1998.
  • “Almeyda’s Blues: Loss and Recovery in Song for Anninho,” American Literature Association Conference, San Diego, California, May 29, 1998.
  • “Lesbian Writers and the ‘New’ Black Aesthetic,” College Language Association Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, April 1997.

 

Service to the Profession

Evaluate manuscripts for the following peer-reviewed journals:
African American Review
Callaloo
MELUS
Southern Spaces (Contributing Editor)
Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature
           
Co-organizer/Planner: Celebrating the African American Novel, an award-winning conference at Penn State University, April 1-2, 2005

Founding Secretary-Treasurer and Current Advisory Board Member:  The George Moses Horton Society for the Study of African American Poetry

Editorial Reviewer: Southern Spaces, online journal, Emory University

 

Work in Progress

  • Co-edited collection. “Justice Unveiled: African American Culture and Legal Discourse.” Proposal and preliminary collecting/editing phase.

  • “Zora Neale Hurston.” Companion to Twentieth-Century American Fiction. Blackwell Publishing.  5000 words.

  • “Missing Resistance in the Film Version of Beloved.” Journal essay.

  • “Sexual Reconstruction in Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone.” Journal  essay.

  • “Folk Ethics: Hurston’s Mules and Men  and HBO’s The Wire.”