Dr. Gioia Woods earned her Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in American and Environmental Literature from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1999. She is a Professor of Humanities in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies where she teaches classes in environmental humanities; race, ethnicity, and gender; and cultural studies. Her ongoing scholarship and publications are in American and comparative literatures, ecocriticism, and mid-twentieth-century cultural production.

Since 2013 Dr. Woods has directed the Summer Sustainability Program in Siena, a faculty-led interdisciplinary program designed to explore the relationship between nature and culture in Italy’s Tuscany region. Dr. Woods is the Past President of the Western Literature Association, a former board member and project leader for the Arizona Humanities Council, and a recent Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Milan. Since 2017 she has served as the NAU Faculty Senate President.

She is the author of the Western Writers Series monograph Gary Paul Nabhan, co-editor of Western Subjects: Autobiographical Writing in the North American West, and editor of Left in the West: Literature, Culture, and Progressive Politics in the American West. Her latest book is City Lights: Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Biography of a Bookstore.

Medium History explores memories and moments through creativity and expression, capturing the cultural ethos of that time and place through storytelling and representation. Visual material culture, such as art, and other multimodal forms can elicit responses, emotions, and opinions—human expressions, tied to temporal and cultural aesthetics. This program explores how creative mediums provide context for history beyond dates, and names, and figures.

Word Choice: The Structure, Form, and Discourse of History is a special series will explore how poetry consecrates the human experience during times of upheaval; civil unrest, climate crises, global conflict, and also in times of celebration; equity, freedom, progress. Poets capture the soul of history, giving words to the moments that leave us speechless.

Produced with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University with support from the Orange County Community Foundation.

Guest: Dr. Gioia Woods
Hosts: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by: Past Forward
Date recorded: March 12, 2025

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