Welcome to the collected works of Ugena Whitlock, where reflections on curriculum, pedagogy, and life intersect. As the Front Porch Professor, Ugena brings a narrative approach to scholarship, blending academic insight with stories rooted in lived experience, the South, and the broader human journey.
Books:
Whitlock, U. (2013). Queer South Rising: Voices from a Contested Place. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
Whitlock, U. (2007). This Corner of Canaan: Curriculum Studies of Place & the Reconstruction of the South. Peter Lang.
Endorsements:
This remarkable book combines passion and honesty to remind us why the South still matters so much in American life. Writing in a voice entirely her own, [Whitlock] shows us a South that is both profoundly new and profoundly old. —Edward L. Ayers, Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and president emeritus, University of Richmond.
As one both deeply familiar with and perpetually puzzled by the United States ‘South,’ I found [Whitlock’s] careful rendering of the contradictions of nostalgia, mystery, home, and grace insightful in its evocation of the lived and yet-to-be-lived meanings of place. She offers those of us who navigate this landscape ways to think about how we can contribute to rescripting the meanings of this particularly complex social geography. —Susan Talburt, Professor and Director, Institute for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Georgia State University.
Refereed Journal Articles:
O’Malley, A., Beck, B., Capper, C., Lugg, C., Murphy, J., & Whitlock, U. (2018). Asking queer(er) questions: Epistemological and methodological implications for qualitative inquirers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2018.1455996
Whitlock, U. (2010). Getting queer: Teacher education, gender studies, and the cross-disciplinary quest for queer pedagogies. Issues in Teacher Education, 19(2), 81-104.
Whitlock, U. (2009). “Them Ol’ Nasty Lesbians”: Rural formations of lesbian identity. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 13(1), 98-106.
Whitlock, U. (2008). Queering “The Misfit”: Locating a curriculum of place within Flannery O’Connor’s fundamentalist narrator. Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 4.
Whitlock, U. (2006). Queerly fundamental: Christian fundamentalism, Southern queerness, and curriculum studies. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 3(1), 165-186.
Whitlock, U. (2006). Season of lilacs: Nostalgia of place and homeplace(s) of difference. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, Fall-Winter, 7-26.
Whitlock, U. (2006). South to a queer place. Journal of Poverty, 10(2), 113-116.
Whitlock, U. (2003). Some measure of healing: Dorothy Allison as theorist. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Fall, 18-28.
Book Chapters:
Whitlock, U. (2024). Hello field. I know it’s been awhile. In B. Wozolek, W. S. Gershon, & R. Mitchell (Eds.), Letters to the field: Curriculum scholars’ stories for future generations (Kindle ed.). Myers Education Press.
Whitlock, U. (2019). For us, today: Understanding curriculum as theological text in the 21st century. In C. Hebert, N. Ng-A-Fook, A. Ibrahim, & B. Smith (Eds.), Internationalizing curriculum studies: Histories, environments, and critiques. Palgrave Macmillan.
Whitlock, U. (2018). An ethics of free responsible action: Examining Doll’s Struggling with spirituality. In M. Quinn (Ed.), Complexifying curriculum studies (pp. 147-152). Routledge.
Whitlock, U. (2017). A memoir of Littleville School: Identity, community, and rural education in a curriculum study of rural place. In W. Reynolds (Ed.), Forgotten places: Critical studies in rural education. Peter Lang.
Whitlock, U. (2013). Queer South Rising: Voices of a Contested Place. [Contributing Author]. In this collection, contributors explore the intersections of Southern identity and personal narratives, challenging traditional perceptions of the South through diverse storytelling.
Endorsements:
This is simply wonderful! Reading these pieces is invigorating—like getting a call from my mama—as if she had never died and had just been hiding out in the mountains somewhere. Suddenly I feel like I am not alone, that I have family close by. These essays are powerful tales and wonderfully complicated examinations of what most of the world does not even acknowledge: my people and our messy lives. —Dorothy Allison, Writer, Feminist, Activist; author of Bastard Out of Carolina.
This collection is bound to stir things up. The ground begins to shake in the table of contents, and by the introduction, the first crack has opened up underneath our feet. —William F. Pinar, Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia.
For years the South has been neglected as a site of intellectual inquiry. This collection fills that void by bringing diverse voices to speak to the beauty and pain of living below the Mason-Dixon line. —E. Patrick Johnson, author of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South.
Stay tuned for more publications where scholarly inquiry meets the stories from the front porch—exploring education, reflection, and the journey ahead.
The Front Porch Professor 