office: 309b Tate phone: 573-882-6885 email: lawlesse@missouri.edu web:
web.missouri.edu/~lawlesse office hours: W 9:15-12:30
and by appointment
Research and teaching areas:
Folklore Studies, Women's and Gender
Studies, Religious Studies, women's
literature and verbal art, and women's
narrative; human rights, social justice,
violence against women
Elaine Lawless
Elaine Lawless is the author of five books, and a sixth in press, as well as many scholarly articles and is the co-producer (with Elizabeth Peterson) of the documentary film on Pentecostalism, "Joy Unspeakable." At MU she has received the Faculty Alumni Award, the Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching, a Gold Chalk Award (for graduate instruction) and a Purple Chalk Award (for undergraduate instruction), and the Chancellor's Award for Research. In 2002, she was named a Curators' Professor by the MU Board of Curators; in 2004, she was named MU Alumni Distinguished Professor. In 2003, she founded and is the producer of the Troubling Violence Performance Project, with Professor Heather Carver (director), MU Theatre Department.
From 2005-2008, Dr. Lawless served as the Director of the Center for Arts and Humanities, Conley House, on the MU campus.
She is the President of the American Folklore Society.
Education PhD 1982, University of Indiana
Selected Publications
Lawless, Elaine and M. Heather Carver. Troubling Violence: An Auto/Ethnographic Performance Project Forthcoming Univ. of Miss. Press, Fall 2008
Elaine Lawless. "Ecstacy Across a Thin Line: Pentecostalism in the Deep South," Missouri History Journal in press
Elaine Lawless. "Troubling Violence Through Performance: Dramatic Responses to [Un]Common Concerns," Professional Creativity and the Common Good Ed. Edmund Lambeth. Harvard University Press, in press. [23 pg. ms.]
Elaine J. Lawless. "In Search of Our Mothers. . .and Our Selves" [non-fiction] Ballad Girls and Absent Gods: Poetry, Fiction, and Other Reflections by Folklorists ed. Frank deCaro, Utah State University Press, in press.
Elaine Lawless. Moving Targets: When violence hits home Folklore Summer, 2006
Elaine Lawless. Visual Images: The Eroticizing of female abuse Western Folklore Fall, 2006 (invited)
Elaine J. Lawless. "A Call for Action: Improving Community Awareness of and Responses to Local Violence Against Women" Peace Studies Quarterly Fall, 2006
Elaine Lawless. The 'Cycles of Violence' Narrative Prototype as a Folk Story: Recognizing Folklore Where it Works for Justice New York Folklore Quarterly 8 (Spring 2004). [Appeared in 2005]
Elaine Lawless. Performing Witchery: Cartography and Power in Ethnographic Fiction Louisiana Folklore Quarterly (Spring 2004): 20-31 [Appeared in 2005]
Elaine Lawless. Woman as Abject: Resisting Cultural and Religious Myths that Condone Violence against Women Western Folklore 9.4 (2004): 12-22
Elaine Lawless. Women Escaping Violence: Empowerment Through Narrative (University of Missouri Press, 2001) www.umsystem.edu
Courses Taught
Eng/WGS 3180:01 Survey of Women's Writers
English 4780/7780: Women’s Folklore & Feminist Theory
English 8700: Seminar in Folklore
Selected Awards
Alumni Association Faculty/Alumni Award
Gold Chalk Award
Honor Tap
Purple Chalk Award
William T. Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching
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