Faculty Directory - Bio
SHIRLEY C. MOODYAssistant professor of English
Contact:
28 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802
Office Phone: 814-863-9584
Email: scm18@psu.edu
Office Hours:
Monday 10-11 and Wednesday 2-4
Shirley Moody is an assistant professor of English at Penn State University. Specializing in African American literature and folklore studies, her work explores the complex relationships between representations of folklore in popular culture and literature and US racial and national identity formations. She received her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland in 2006 and has taught numerous courses and workshops on African American literature, folklore studies, race and oral history. She is currently working on her book, Conjuring the Color Line: Race, Folklore and Fiction in the Jim Crow Era, which explores how representations of black folklore perpetuated the racial stereotypes that upheld Jim Crow segregation. She is recipient of a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and she is a former post-doctoral fellow of Penn State University’s Africana Research Center.
Areas of Research Interest:
Nineteenth and twentieth century African American literature; American and African American folklore studies; racial and national identity formations in late nineteenth century US literature and culture; politics of cultural/racial representation; memory, narrative and oral history
Publications:
“Anna Julia Cooper, Charles Chesnutt and the Hampton Folklore Society: Constructing a Black Folk Aesthetic through Folklore and Memory,” in New Directions in the African American Novel, eds. Lovalarie King and Linda Selzer (Forthcoming, Palgrave Press), 20 pp.
“Lloyd Louis Brown” and “Camille Olivia Cosby” in African American National Biography, eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Forthcoming, Oxford University Press,), 1000 words each.
Works-In-Progress
Conjuring the Color Line: Folklore, Fiction and Race in the Jim Crow Era
My monograph examines the role of folklore in constructing the social, cultural, literary and legal fictions of race in United States from 1830-1900.
“Gendering Africana Studies: Insights from Anna Julia Cooper,” co-authored with James Stewart
Selected Scholarly Presentations
“The Black Majority: Folklore and Racial Representation in Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman.” Public Lecture, University of Maryland. College Park, MD. May 2006
“Anna Julia Cooper and the Hampton Folklore Society: Theorizing a Black Folk Aesthetic.” Celebrating the African American Novel. Pennsylvania State University. State College, PA. April 2005.
“Jimcrows, Flying Fools and Being Black: Customary Folklore in Ralph Ellison’s ‘Flying Home.’” Diasporan Dialogues. University of Maryland. College Park, MD. February 2003.
“Approaches to Teaching Zora Neale Hurston and the Harlem Renaissance.” Center Alliance for School Teachers (CAST) and the David Driskell Center. College Park, MD. March 1999.
“From Theory to Pedagogy and Back Again: How Theories of Self and Fieldwork Inform the Folklore Classroom.” University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI. February 1999.
Professional Service
Member, Executive Board, Public Service Media Initiative, Penn State University, 2007
Co-coordinator, “Diasporan Dialogues” interdisciplinary series, University of Maryland, 2002-2006.
