Laurie Woodard began her professional life as a dancer with the Dance Theater of Harlem. She completed her BA in History at Columbia University and her PhD in African American Studies and History at Yale University. Her research focuses upon the intersection between the cultural and sociopolitical realms and employs interdisciplinary methodologies, drawing from cultural history, performance studies, biography, and critical race theory. She is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Award; the National Endowment for the Humanities Schomburg Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship; and the Sylvia Arden Boone Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Journal of African American History, and American Quarterly. Her book A Real Negro Girl: Fredi Washington and the New Negro Renaissance will be released by Oxford University Press.

Yale University, Ph.D., History and African American Studies, 2007

Yale University, MA, History and African American Studies, 2002

Columbia University, BA, History, 2000

African American Cultural, Intellectual, Social, and Political History, U.S. Social, Cultural, and Political History, Early Modern Atlantic World History and Culture, Post-Emancipation African American Cultural History, Post-Emancipation African American Women’s History