Employment
The University of California, Irvine
Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies
July 2021 – Present
The University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Postdoctoral Fellow at The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African and African American Studies
August 2021 – August 22′
Education
The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 2021, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, M.A., 2016, Women’s and Gender Studies
Spelman College, B.A., 2013, English
Teaching and Research Interests
Black feminism, Black sexuality studies, Black popular culture, African American women’s literature, critical race and gender theory, Black speculative and magical realist fiction, literary and cultural criticism, Contemporary U.S. popular culture, sexual violence, racialized sexual violence
Awards, Fellowships & Grants
2021-2022| Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+) Book Development Summer Institute
2020-2021| American Association of University Women American Dissertation Fellowship
2020| Honorable Mention for 2020-2021 Ford Dissertation Completion Fellowship Competition
2019| SSRC Mellon Mays Predoctoral Research Grant
2018| SSRC Mellon Mays Graduate Studies Enrichment Grant
2017| SSRC Mellon Mays Graduate Studies Enrichment Grant
2017| The Ohio State University Department of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Travel Grant for Graduate Students
2016-2017| The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Enrichment Fellowship
2011-2013| UNCF Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
Publications
Little, Mahaliah. “Being Toward Trauma: Theorizing Post-Violence Sexuality.” Rejoinder: Special Issue – Trauma, vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, https://irw.rutgers.edu/rejoinder-webjournal/issue-7-trauma/578-being-toward-trauma-theorizing-post-violence-sexuality.
Fair, Freda L., and Mahaliah A. Little. “Erotic Illegibility and Desire in Representations of Black Sexuality.” American Quarterly, vol. 71 no. 1, 2019, p. 151-159.
Book Reviews
Little, Mahaliah A. “Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being: Review.” Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, vol. 6, no. 1, 2017, pp. 137–140.
Book Chapters
Little, Mahaliah A. “Why Don’t We Love These Hoes? Black Women, Popular Culture, and the Contemporary Hoe Archetype.” Black Female Sexualities. Ed. Trimiko Melancon and Joanne M. Braxton. New Brunswick: Rutgers New Brunswick, 2015. 89-99.
Publications-in-Progress
“Trauma and Arousal in Tandem: Black Women’s Sexuality in Gloria Naylor’s Bailey’s Cafe,” in the Gloria Naylor in the Archives edited anthology (Forthcoming 2023, University of Mississippi Press)
Invited Talks
2020| Black Feminist Versuz – Black Feminist Kitchen Summer School, Resource Sharing Circle, Zoom Webinar, July 9th
2020| “Perhaps My Protest Looks Different”: A Panel Discussion. American Shakespeare Center, Zoom Webinar, June 19th
2020| Community Conversation: Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Lincoln Theater Association, Columbus, OH, March 26th
(Postponed Due to COVID-19)
2018| Volunteer Lecturer on Sexual Assault with Mary Thomas and Deja Beamon, Richland Correctional Institute, Richland Ohio February 28th
2018| Coffee & Conversation: WOC Speak on Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” Zora’s House Women of Color Co-Working Space, Columbus, OH, May 18th
Research Experience
2019| Graduate Research Assistant for Dr. Treva B. Lindsey, the Ohio State University, May – September
Compiled data of black women killed by police violence from 2000 to the present, a bibliography of black women scholars who have written about prison abolition and reform, and various spreadsheets compiling data about black women starring in film and television in the 1990s.
2018-2019| Graduate Research Assistant for Dr. Andreá N. Williams, the Ohio State University, October – April
Gathered research via microfilm, state, and nationwide databases, and digital magazine archives.
2012| Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, the University of California, Los Angeles, June – August
Produced an original research project while mentored by Dr. Lisbeth Gant-Britton and Dr. Sarah Haley that was revised and later submitted for publication in the 2015 Black Female Sexualities anthology (RU Press 2015).
Research Programs
2021-2022| “U See I Write” Annual Faculty Writing Retreat Cohort
Weekly 3hr writing retreats among senate faculty across the University of California, Irvine campus
2020-2021| The Center for Black, Brown and Queer Studies (BBQ+) Book Development Summer Institute
Weekly book proposal development workshop for Black, Brown, and queer junior faculty in and outside the academy
Teaching Experience
University of Virginia
The Carter G. Woodson Institute & Department of African American and African Studies – Instructor
4507-002: Magical Realism in Black Women’s Literature (AU 2021)
The Ohio State University
Dept of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies – Instructor
2230: Gender, Race, and Sex In Popular Culture (SU 2018)
Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Cross Registered with Dept. of English and African and African American Studies) – Instructor
2367.04: Black Women Writers- Texts and Contexts (SP 2018) (AU 2018) (SPR 2019) (SU 2019) (SPR 2020) (SU 2020)
Dept of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies – Graduate Teaching Associate
2230: Gender, Sex, and Power – Intro to Women’s and Gender Studies (AU 2017)
The Michael V. Drake Institute For Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University
Awarded AU 2020| Teaching endorsement in recognition of the successful completion of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Meaningful Inquiry Workshop
Marion Correctional Institution
Healing Broken Circles Nonprofit, Inc. – Volunteer Instructor
Our World in Fiction: Gender, Social Status, and Race in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing Unburied, Sing (AY 2019)
Black Women’s Magical Realism: from Lesley Nneka Arimah’s What It Means When A Man Falls from the Sky, Leone Ross’ Come, Let Us Sing Anyway & Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild & Other Stories (AY 2018)
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Department of American Studies – Teaching Assistant and Grader
History and Culture of Hip-Hop: (AU 2015)
Conference Presentations and Activity
Panels Moderated
2018| Panel 1: Mobility & Containment – Naming (In)Justice Symposium + Zine Workshop: Rights and Resistance Across Queer Migrations and Trafficking, Ohio State University, October 18th
Panel Discussions
2022| “New Directions in the Study of the Black South,” 2022 Annual Meeting and Conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Black Health and Wellness, September 29th
2022| “Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute Roundtable,” The 2022 UNCF/Mellon Mays Regional Conference, UNCF/Mellon Programs: Answering the Call to Transform the Academy, October 8th
2021| “UNCF/Mellon Fellows: Thought Leaders in the Academy Roundtable,” The 2021 UNCF/Mellon Mays Virtual Conference, Celebrating Mentorship and Scholarship, October 9th
2017| “The Profundity of Deep Southern Culture”: An Analysis of Queen Sugar and Moonlight,” National Women’s Studies Association Conference 2017, November 16th
2017| “The Profundity of Deep Southern Culture”: An Analysis of Queen Sugar and Moonlight,” American Studies Association Conference 2017, November 9th
Papers Presented
2017| “Impolite & Unimaginable Erotics: Representations of Enslaved African American Women’s Sexuality,” Department of Black Studies “This Is Not Your Grandfather’s Black Studies”: Centering Pleasure and Anti-Respectability as Methodology” Annual Conference, University of Missouri, October 14th
2015| “20 Years After Sylvia Wynter’s “NHI.”: The Implosion of the Post-Racial Myth in America,” Department of Women’s and Gender Studies Human Futures Graduate Conference, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, April 24th
2013| “Why Don’t We Love These Hoes?: Black Women, Popular Culture & the Contemporary “Hoe” Archetype,” Annual Research Day Conference, Spelman College, April 19th
2012| “Why Don’t We Love These Hoes?: Black Women, Intra-gender Oppression & the Contemporary “Hoe” Archetype,” Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Southeastern Regional Conference, University of Texas, Austin, November 17th
2012| “Why Don’t We Love These Hoes?: Black Women, Intra-gender Oppression & the Contemporary “Hoe” Archetype,” Summer Programs for Undergraduate Research Conference, University of Los Angeles, August 14th
2011| “The Revolution Will Not be Televised: Poems of the Black Arts Movement,” UNCF MMUF Summer Institute, Emory University, June 24th
Campus & Departmental Talks
2020| “Word On the Street” 42nd Anniversary Community Conversation. OSU Black Student Association, February 26th
2017| “Pay It No Mind”: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson,” Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University, February 8th
Service to Profession
Undergraduate Curriculum Review:
The University of Virginia, Department of African American and African Studies | Institutional Research, and Analytics
2021-2022 Assessment: 3 in 1: Undergraduate Writing, Information Literacy, and Critical Thinking
February 22, 2022
Academic Journals and Conferences:
Open Cultural Studies, Reviewer
“Black Girl Magic: Redefining New Black Feminist Thought” Special Issue, July 2021 – May 2022
National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA): Level 1 Conference Proposal Reviewer
For the NWSA Conference in Minneapolis, MN, November 12-15th, 2020 (Postponed 1yr due to COVID-19)
There is No Hierarchy of Journals: Intersectional Feminist Perspectives, Reviewer
For the inaugural issue established by Intersections, the graduate student organization of the Ohio State University Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, 2018-2019
Departmental and University Service
2019| Booked N’ Busy Book Club, January – December
Founded a book club with the support of WGSS at OSU after former students expressed interest in continuing to read Black women writers and Black writers
2017| Anti-Racism Committee Member, Spring Semester
My faculty committee members and I hosted an event during which graduate teaching associates and instructors in our department came together to workshop standard responses to difficult classroom situations caused by the political polarization of the 2016 presidential election
2016-2019| Feminist Sex-Ed Presenter
Co-presented the Feminist Sex-Ed Program created by Dr. Jon Branfman with other WGSS graduate students. Feminist Sex-Ed presentations are LGBTQIA+ inclusive, pro-pleasure, and evidence-based
Professional Affiliations and Memberships
National Women’s Studies Association
American Studies Association
Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society
National Association of Spelman Alumnae
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
