Caroline Woidat

Professor of English; Director, Center for Social Justice Studies; Coordinator, American Studies and Native American Studies
Welles 228A
585-245-5271
woidat@geneseo.edu

Caroline Woidat received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and has been a member of the Geneseo faculty since 1994. Along with Dr. Oberg in the History department, Woidat is a co-founder of the Native American Studies program at Geneseo. She often teaches courses examining American women writers, Native American literature, American studies, and textual recovery through archival research. She participated in the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges hybrid course sharing in Native American studies. In 2008 she received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her research currently centers on the religious writings by 19th-century author and activist Elizabeth Oakes Smith. In 2015 Woidat published The Western Captive and Other Indian Stories (Broadview Press).

Woidat coordinates the Center for Social Justice Studies, the American Studies and Native American Studies programs at Geneseo. She has traveled with Geneseo students to attend lectures and participate in seminars at the Yeats International Summer School in County Sligo, Ireland.

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Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • B.A., University of Notre Dame

  • M.A., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Selected Publications

  • "Captivity, Freedom, and the New World Convent: The Spiritual Autobiography of Marie de l'Incarnation Guyart." Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 25.1 (2008): 1-22.

  • "The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture." The Journal of American Culture. 29.4 (December 2006): 454-467.

  • "The 'Indian Detour' in Willa Cather's Southwestern Novels." Twentieth-Century Literature 48.1 (Spring 2002): 22-49.

  • "Puritan Daughters and 'Wild' Indians: Elizabeth Oakes Smith's Narratives of Domestic Captivity." Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 18.1 (Spring 2001): 21-34.

  • "Talking Back to Schoolteacher: Morrison's Confrontation with Hawthorne in Beloved." Modern Fiction Studies 39.3/4 (1993): 527-46. Reprinted in Reading Toni Morrison: Theoretical and Critical Approaches. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. 181-200.

Professional Recognitions and Awards

  • Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2008

Interests

  • Native American Literature
  • American Literature
  • Creative Writing
  • Women's and Gender Studies
  • Carceral Studies

Classes

  • ENGL 203: Rdg: Marginal Spaces

    An introduction to the discipline of English through the study of particular topics, issues, genres, or authors. Subtitles of "Reader and Text" help students develop a working vocabulary for analyzing texts and relating texts to contexts; understand the theoretical questions that inform all critical conversations about textual meaning and value; and participate competently, as writers, in the ongoing conversation about texts and theory that constitutes English as a field of study.

  • ENGL 439: Lit: Captivity Narratives

    Advanced critical study of a theme, movement, or special subject in the U.S. cultural tradition. For example, Women Writers and 19th-Century Social Reform, Filming the 70s, and The Harlem Renaissance.