Karen Little, Student of English and African & African American Studies  

Karen Little

Email Address: karen.e.little@duke.edu

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Karen Little is a PhD candidate in English and enrolled in the African and African American Studies graduate certificate program, as well. Her dissertation examines representations of black American property ownership in twentieth century US fiction and film, especially by black American authors such as Richard Wright, Ann Petry, Octavia Butler, and Gloria Naylor. In service of this project, she researches the history of discriminatory and exclusionary property law in the US, the rights associated with home-ownership, and theorists who imagine a more ethical system of property. Her project is premised on the belief that everybody deserves the protections and comforts of home and also recognizes that this is a tall order without radical systemic change; she suspects that novelists have some of the most imaginative responses to this conundrum. She has a BA in English (2007), an MA in Secondary Education (2009), and an MA in English (2014) from the University of Kentucky.