Dr. Lydia Ferguson, Senior Lecturer of English

Lydia E. Ferguson is a Senior Lecturer in Kennesaw State University’s Department of English and Affiliate Faculty in American Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies. Described by one student as “giving Natasha Lyonne vibes,” Dr. Ferguson nevertheless holds a PhD in American Literature. A nineteenth and early twentieth-century Americanist researching race, age, sexuality, and disability within Material & Intangible Culture, she is concomitantly a vintage hoarder and digital-humanities nerd. Lydia is co-founder of the Aegis Digital Museum, an open-access resource built in collaboration with students, educators, activist-scholars, and community organizers. Aegis documents practices and houses artifacts and teaching tools that contribute diverse perspectives and experiential knowledge to the field of Cultural Studies. Learn more at  https://aegisdigitalmuseum.kennesaw.edu/.

Email: lfergu28@kennesaw.edu 


 
MAST Courses Taught:  

  • AMST 7210: Historical Period 
  • AMST 7230: Public History and Culture 
  • AMST 7410: Literature and Performance in American Culture 
  • AMST 7420: American Popular Culture 
  • AMST 7510: Passages to America 
     

Select Publications:   

  • “Of Passing and Preservation: Intangible Material Culture and the (Im)materialities of Black Death in the American South.” Rhetorics of Southern Place, eds. Heather Palmer and Jennifer Beech (Brill Press, forthcoming summer 2026). 
     
  • “Going in Reverse: The Post-Plessy Railroad in Charles Chesnutt’s The Colonel’s Dream.” North Carolina Literary Review, no. 29 (2020): 22-35. 
     
  • “Pro-Slavery Appropriations and Inadvertent Agencies: The Elder(ly) ‘Uncle’ in Plantation Fiction.” American Studies, vol. 58, no. 1 (2019): 49-72. 
     
  • “Misogyny in American Literature.” Co-authored with Alyssa D. Ross. Misogyny in American Culture: Causes, Trends, Solutions, vol. 1. Edited by Letizia Guglielmo. ABC-CLIO, 2018: 305-329. 
     
  • “Branding Blackness: Disney’s Commodification of Black Culture in Song of the South and The Princess and the Frog.” Children's Film in the Digital Age: Essays on Audience, Adaptation and Consumer Culture, edited by Beeler, Karen, and Stan Beeler. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014: 160-171.