Karla Holloway
James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of English
Karla FC Holloway is James B.Duke Professor of English at Duke University. She also holds appointments in the Law School, Women's Studies and African & African American Studies. Her research and teaching interests focus on African American cultural studies, biocultural studies, gender, ethics and law.
Professor Holloway serves on the boards of the Greenwall Foundation's Advisory Board in Bioethics, the Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies, and the Princeton University Council on the Study of Women and Gender.
She is an affiliated faculty with the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life and the Trent Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. She has served as Dean of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair (and member) of Duke's Appointments, Promotion and Tenure Committee, and as an elected member of the Academic Council and its Executive Council. She is founding co-director of the John Hope Franklin Center and the Franklin Humanities Institute.
Professor Holloway is the author of eight books, including Passed On: African-American Mourning Stories (2002) and BookMarks--Reading in Black and White, A Memoir (2006) completed during a residency in Bellagio, Italy as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. BookMarks was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction. Professor Holloway spent Spring 2008 as Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at Harvard University's DuBois Institute. The book she completed during that fellowship, Private Bodies/Public Texts: Race, Gender, & a Cultural Bioethics was published in 2011 by Duke U Press. Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literatures will be published by Duke Press in 2014. Professor Holloway was recently elected to the Hastings Center Fellows Association--a selective group of leading researchers who have made a distinguished contribution to the field of bioethics. She has served as a member of Duke University's Board of Trustee's Committee on Honorary Degrees.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
- James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2017
- Professor Emerita of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2017
Contact Information
- 304F Allen Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
- Box 90015, Durham, NC 27708-0015
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karla.holloway@duke.edu
(919) 684-8993
- Background
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Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Michigan State University 1978
- M.A., Michigan State University 1972
- B.A., Talladega College 1971
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Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Professor with Tenure, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1993 - 2017
- James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2008 - 2017
- Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2009 - 2014
- Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies, African & African American Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2010 - 2013
- Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2005 - 2008
- Professor of Law, Law School, Duke University 2005 - 2008
- Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2007 - 2008
- William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of English and African American Literature, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1996 - 2007
- Dean of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Duke University 1999 - 2004
- Director, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Duke University 1996 - 1999
- Acting Director, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Duke University 1995 - 1996
- Visiting Professor, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1993
- Visiting Professor, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1992
- Recognition
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In the News
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MAY 28, 2022 -
JAN 20, 2021 -
JAN 24, 2020 Trinity College of Arts and Sciences -
JAN 30, 2017 Duke Council on Race and Ethnicity -
FEB 16, 2016 Duke Today -
JAN 26, 2016 The Atlantic -
NOV 17, 2015 -
SEP 18, 2015 Duke Today -
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JUL 13, 2015 The New York Times -
MAY 13, 2015 -
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OCT 9, 2014
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Awards & Honors
- Expertise
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Subject Headings
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Global Scholarship
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Expertise
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- Research
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Selected Grants
- Publications & Artistic Works
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Selected Publications
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Books
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Holloway, K. Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literature. Duke University Press, 2014.Link to Item
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Holloway, K. Private Bodies/Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics. Duke University Press, 2011.
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Holloway, K. BookMarks: Reading in Black and White–A Memoir. Rutgers University Press, 2006.
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Holloway, K. Passed On: African American Mourning Stories. Duke UP, 2002.
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Holloway, K. Codes of Conduct: Race, Ethics, and the Color of Our Character. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1995.
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Holloway, K. Moorings & Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Blk Women’s Lit. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1992.
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Holloway, K. The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987.
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Holloway, K. New Dimensions of Spirituality: A BiRacial and BiCultural Reading of the Novels of Toni Morrison. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987.
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Academic Articles
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Holloway, K. F. C. “Revision and (Re)membrance: A theory of literary structures in literature by african-American women writers.” African American Review 50, no. 4 (December 1, 2017): 765–79. https://doi.org/10.1353/afa.2017.0134.Full Text
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Holloway, Karla F. C. “Their Bodies, Our Conduct: How Society and Medicine Produce Persons Standing in Need of End-of-Life Care.” Journal of Palliative Medicine 19, no. 2 (February 2016): 127–28. https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2015.0256.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “Beloved: An American Grammar Book.” Daedalus 143, no. 1 (2014): 107–14.
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Holloway, K. F. C. ““Vulnerable” populations—Medicine, race, and presumptions of identity.” Virtual Mentor 13, no. 2 (January 1, 2011): 124–27. https://doi.org/10.1001/virtualmentor.2011.13.2.msoc1-1102.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “Composing Private Bodies.” Hastings Center Matters Fall 2011 (2011).
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Holloway, K. “Genomics, Arts & Popular Culture.” Annals of Scholarship: Arts Practices; Human Science in a Global Culture Fall (2009).
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Holloway, K. “Nothing’s Secret.” Duke Magazine 95 (2009).
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Holloway, K. “The Passing of a Repast.” The Forum–American Assn of Education and Counseling, October 2008.
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Holloway, K. “The Right to Privacy: Home Invasions–Standing Naked Before the Law,” 2008.
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Holloway, K. F. C. “Editor's afterword: Private bodies/public texts: Literature, science, and states of surveillance.” Literature and Medicine 26, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 269–76. https://doi.org/10.1353/lm.2008.0004.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “What Would DuBois Do?” Black Issues Book Review, 2007.
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Holloway, K. “Private Bodies/Public Texts: Literature, Science, and States of Surveillance.” Literature and Medicine 26 (2007).
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Holloway, K. F. C. “Response to open peer commentaries on "accidental communities: Race, emergency medicine, and the problem of PolyHeme®": The "R" word: Bioethics and a (Dis)regard of race [2].” American Journal of Bioethics 6, no. 3 (July 1, 2006). https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160600686414.Full Text
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Holloway, Karla F. C. “Accidental communities: race, emergency medicine, and the problem of polyheme.” The American Journal of Bioethics : Ajob 6, no. 3 (May 2006): 7–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160600685556.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “Don’t Discount DNA Dangers.” Raleigh News and Observer, March 2006.
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Holloway, K. “Cruel Enough to Stop the Blood: Global Feminisms and the U.S. Body Politic, or: ’They Done Taken My Blues and Gone’.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 7 (2006).
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Holloway, K. “Coda: Bodies of Evidence.” Edited by Janet Jakobsen. S&F (Scholar and Feminist) Online 4 (2006).
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Holloway, K. “The "R" Word: Bioethics and a (Dis)Regard of Race.” American Journal of Bioethics 6 (2006).
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Holloway, K. “The Death of Culture.” The Massachusetts Review, 1999, 31–41.
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Holloway, K. “The Ladies Speak Out.” Review of Wearing Purple, Edited by Otis Owens Et Al., the Raleigh News and Observer, February 1997.
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Awkward, Michael, and Michelle Johnson. “Zora Neale Hurston,” 1997, 283–96.
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Holloway, K. “Cultural Narratives Passed On: African American Mourning Stories.” College English 59 (1997): 32–40.
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Holloway, K. “Review of Nathaniel Mackey’s Djbot Baghostus’s Run.” African American Review 29 (1995): 698–700.
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Brogan, J. V., L. Dubek, K. F. Holloway, S. A. Innes, W. Martin, J. M. Rogers, L. Schwartz, M. Sprencnether, and R. Torry. “Notes on Contributors.” Women’S Studies 23, no. 4 (September 1, 1994): 397–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.1994.9979038.Full Text
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Holloway, K. F. “Private Parts/Public Spaces: Or, “My Tongue is in My Friend's Mouth”.” Women’S Studies 23, no. 4 (September 1, 1994): 307–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.1994.9979032.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “Private Parts/Public Spaces.” Women’S Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 23 (1994): 307–19.
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Holloway, K. “Cultural Politics in the Academic Community: Masking the Color Line.” College English 55 (1993): 610–17.
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Holloway, K. “Holy Heat: Rituals of the Spirit in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Journal of Religion and Literature 23 (1991): 127–41.
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Holloway, K. “Beloved: A Spiritual.” Callaloo 13 (1990): 516–25.
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Holloway, K. “Review of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Black American Literature Forum 23 (1989): 179–82.
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Holloway, K. “Review of Gloria Naylor’s Talking Vines and Whispering Rocks: Mama Day.” Belle Lettres, August 1988.
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Holloway, K. F. C., and S. Demetrakopoulos. “Remembering our foremother: Older black women, politics of age, politics of survival as embodied in the novels of toni morrison.” Women and Politics 6, no. 2 (June 1, 1986): 13–34. https://doi.org/10.1300/J014v06n02_03.Full Text
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Holloway, K. F. C. “The effects of basal readers on oral language structures: A description of complexity.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 15, no. 2 (March 1, 1986): 141–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067519.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “The Effects of Basal Readers on Oral Language Complexity.” Jrnl of Psycholinguistic Research 15 (March 1986): 141–51.
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Holloway, K. “Remembering Our Foremothers: Older Black Women - Politics of Age, Politics of Survival.” Women and Politics 6 (1986): 13–34.
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Holloway, K. “Women as Elders: Images, Visions, and Issues (report).” Edited by M. J. Bell, 1986, 13–34.
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Book Sections
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Holloway, K. F. C., and S. Demetrakopoulos. “Remembering our foremothers: Older black women, politics of age, politics of survival as embodied in the novels of Toni Morrison.” In The Other within Us: Feminist Explorations of Women and Aging, 177–95, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429496059.Full Text
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Holloway, K. “W.E.B.DuBois and The Right to Privacy.” In African American Culture and Legal Discourse, edited by L. King and R. Schur. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
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Holloway, K. “Bury the Thought.” In Shaping Memories, edited by J. Gabbin. Univ of Mississippi Press, 2009.
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Holloway, K. “Foreword: On Monuments and Documents.” In Uncrowned Queens: African American Community Leaders of Western New York, Vol. 3, 2006.
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Holloway, K. “Zora Neale Hurston.” In The Oxford Companion to Women’s Literature in the United States, edited by Cathy Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin, 408–10. Oxford UP, 2003.
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Holloway, K. “The Race for Theory.” In Literature on the Move: Comparing Diasporic Ethnicities in Europe and the Americas, edited by Dominique Marcais and et al, 97:347–54. Heidelberg: Universitaetsverlag Carl, 2002.
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Holloway, K. “Gender.” In The Oxford Companion to African-American Literature, edited by William Andrews et al, 312–15. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
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Holloway, K. “Narrative Time/Spiritual Text.” In Faulkner/Morrison, Morrison/Faulkner, edited by C. Kolmerten, S. Ross, and J. Wittenberg. UP of Missisippi, 1997.
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Holloway, K. “My Tongue is In My Friend’s Mouth.” In Talking Gender: Public Images, Personal Journeys, and Political Critiques, 124–37. U of North Carolina P, 1996.
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Holloway, K. “The Body Politic.” In Subjects and Citizens: From Ooronoko to Anita Hill, edited by C. Davidson and M. Moon, 481–97. Durham: Duke UP, 1995.
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Holloway, K. “The Lyrical Dimensions of Spirituality.” In Embodied Voices: Female Vocality in Western Culture, edited by N. Jones and L. Dunn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1994.
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Holloway, K. “Language, Culture, and the Implications of Assessment.” In Alternative Perspectives in Children’s Language and Literacy, edited by D. Bloome and et al, 11–21. New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1994.
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Holloway, K. “Image, Act, and Identity in Ernest Gaines’s In My Father’s House.” In New Perspectives on Ernest Gaines, edited by David Estes, 180–94. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1994.
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Holloway, K. “The Emergent Voice: The Word within its Texts.” In Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives, Past and Present, edited by Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah. New York: Amistad P, 1993.
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Holloway, K. “Economies of Space: Markets and Marketability in Our Nig and Iola Leroy.” In The (Other) American Traditions: 19th Century American Women, edited by Joyce Warren, 126–40. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1992.
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Holloway, K. “The Thursday Ladies.” In Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers&Daughters. Boston: Beacon P, 1991.
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Holloway, K. “A Question of Identity.” In Counterpoint and Beyond: A Response to Becoming a Nation of Readers, 43–50. NCTE, 1988.
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Holloway, K. “Learning to Talk - Learning to Read.” In Tapping Potential: English Language Arts for the Black Child. NCTE, 1985.
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Other Articles
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Holloway, K. “Shield the Children (On Public Death and Spectacle).” Raleigh News & Observer, 2014.
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Holloway, K. “Speakers for the Dead (On Brain Death, Race and Cultures of Dying).” Newblackman (In Exile), 2014.
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Holloway, K. “Media Coverage of Global Health: A Matter of Privacy.” Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, 2010.
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Holloway, K. “The False Dividing Line of Race.” Raleigh News and Observer, February 2008.
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Holloway, K. “Hillary and Obama.” The State of Things Wunc–Npr, January 2008.
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Holloway, K. “The Return of One Drop?” Raleigh News and Observer, November 2007.
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Holloway, K. “The Problem with Cosby.” Orlando Sentinel, Durham Herald Sun, October 2007.
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Holloway, K. “Polyheme–An Update?” Durham Herald Sun, September 2007.
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Holloway, K. “Those Faces We Do Not Mourn.” Raleigh News and Observer, August 2007.
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Holloway, K. “Quiet As It’s Kept–Without a Name for Grief.” National Public Radio–News and Notes, June 2006.
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Holloway, K. “DNA and the Romance of Race.” National Public Radio–News and Notes, February 2006.
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Conference Papers
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Schmidt, P., D. Cohn, G. Handley, J. Smith, R. Richardson, J. Matthews, A. Trefzer, et al. “Concluding roundtable: Postcolonial theory, the U.S. South, and New World Studies Joint ALA/SSSL Symposium, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, December 12-15, 2002.” In Mississippi Quarterly, 57:171–94, 2004.
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- Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
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Presentations & Appearances
- On Academic Leadership. November 24, 2013 2013
- One Wants a Teller. October 22, 2013 2013
- Race and Space: Octavia Butler. October 1, 2013 2013
- Ethical Dilemmas in Scientific and Medical Research. April 11, 2013 2013
- Mason-Sekora Lecture "Legal Fictions". March 21, 2013 2013
- How Private Bodies Became Public Texts. February 13, 2013 2013
- Henrietta Lacks & the Ethics of Privacy. September 25, 2012 2012
- Law & African American Literary Studies. July 4, 2012 2012
- Institutional Cultures & African American Studies: A Conversation With the Deans. April 13, 2012 2012
- Bound by Law. March 1, 2012 2012
- Composing Private Bodies. March 1, 2012 2012
- The Immortal Life as a Private Body. March 1, 2012 2012
- Private Bodies,Public Texts; Or, Why Henrietta Lacks Did Not Need The Help. February 1, 2012 2012
- Memoiral, Monument & Text; or "I May Not Get There With You". January 1, 2012 2012
- Race and American Studies. November 3, 2011 2011
- Ethics at the End of Life. August 1, 2011 2011
- Keynote Address: 'Bound by Law: The Literary Consequence of Constitutionally Conferred Equity'. April 1, 2011 2011
- Octavia Butler Symposium. March 24, 2011 2011
- Atelier@Duke Private Bodies. February 1, 2011 2011
- John Hope Franklin and Race: The Dilemma of Mirroring America. February 25, 2010 2010
- John Hope Franklin--In Memoriam. November 1, 2009 2009
- Privacy, Law and Literature. October 1, 2009 2009
- BookMarks--Reading in Black and White. August 1, 2009 2009
- Race, Ancestry, and DNA. April 1, 2009 2009
- Home Invasions: Race and Privacy. February 1, 2009 2009
- Fixing the Spirit--Black Cultures, Black Death. November 1, 2008 2008
- Reading Race, Reading Cultures. November 1, 2008 2008
- When Death is a Public Grieving. October 1, 2008 2008
- Privacy Matters: Pharmaceuticals, Forensics, and 'Who's Your Daddy?'--Race and Public DNA. Harvard University. September 23, 2008 2008
- Race, Genomics and DNA. Rutgers University. September 23, 2008 2008
Some information on this profile has been compiled automatically from Duke databases and external sources. (Our About page explains how this works.) If you see a problem with the information, please write to Scholars@Duke and let us know. We will reply promptly.