Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Alexandria Smith completed her Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University New Brunswick. Her research explores questions of sensation, embodiment, eroticism, and geography in literatures written by diasporic Black queer subjects. Her dissertation, Afrekete’s Room: Mapping the Shape of Space and Narrative in Black Queer Women’s Writing proposes sensual worldmaking as a literary strategy which employs lived and embodied experiences as a source of literary and theoretical knowledge about gender, Blackness, and queerness.

Mahaliah Ayana Little is an American Association of University Women (AAUW) Dissertation Fellow at Ohio State University. After graduating from Spelman College in 2013 as an English major, she attended Rutgers University, New Brunswick, for her master's in Women's and Gender Studies. As an alumna of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Mahaliah is committed to diversifying the professoriate and serving underrepresented students.