Profile
Professional biography
Dr. Johnson teaches American and African American literature, introduction to film study, womenâs literature and horror fiction. Her essays and entries on African American writers have been published in Modern Fiction, The Reference Guides to Modern and Short American Fiction, and The Oxford Companion to Womenâs Writing. Dr. Johnson is also the critical theory editor for the Obsidian journal. She is very involved in neighborhood and community issues and loves coffee, tai chi, meditation, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Academic Credentials
A.M., Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A.B. Guilford College
Presentations
Selected Publications and Presentations
âThe Life and Writings of Ann Petry.â Chaired at the American Literature Association. San Francisco, CA. May, 2008.
âNationhood, Gangstahood and Pedagogy: The Continuing Significance of Ann Petryâs Fiction in the Twenty-First Century.â Chaired at the College Language Association. Maimi, Fl. May, 2007.
âThose Nice People: The Horror of Polite Society in Shirley Jacksonâs âThe Flower Gardenâ.â College Language Association. Nashville, TN. April, 2004.
âLucille Cliftonâs Spiritual Imagination.â Chaired at the American Literature Association. Long Beach, CA. May, 2000.
âPainfully Pointed Paradigms: The Politics of Passion in Ann Allen Shockleyâs âThe Mistress and the Slave Girlâ.â American Language Association. Baltimore, MD. May, 1999.
âYou Canât Bind What Donât Cling: Metaphysical Discourse in August Wilsonâs JoeTurnerâs Come and Gone.â College Language Association. Atlanta, GA. April, 1997.
âChuck Davis.â The North Carolina Biography Project. 2002
âMarita Bonner Occomy.â The Oxford Companion to Womenâs Writing in the United States. Oxford University Press, 1995.
âErnest Gaines.â The American Reference Guide to Short Fiction. 1998.
âToni Cade Bambara.â The American Reference Guide to Fiction. 1999.
âSandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar.â The American Reference Guide to Fiction. 1999
âWriting Within the Script: Alice Dunbar-Nelsonâs âEllen Fentonâ.â Studies in American Fiction. Autumn (91):165-74, 1991.
Awards
Mary Lynch Johnson Chair in English, 2013-present.