Dr. Kathleen Godfrey (she/her/hers) has been a professor at Fresno State since 1999.
Her teaching interests include secondary English teaching methods, American Indian
literature, and literacy studies. She was awarded the Classroom Excellence Award from
the California Association for Teachers of English in 2008. From 2006-2018, she served
as director and principal investigator of the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project,
a professional development organization for teachers.
Dr. Godfrey has published on women's writing, American Indian literature, and various
aspects of teaching. In addition to making numerous presentations at local schools
and national/international conferences, she was awarded a Fulbright, working as a
Roving Scholar in Norway during the 2008-2009 academic year. She also was an NEH scholar
in 2018 studying The Native American West: A Case Study of the Columbian Plateau.
Her most recent work has focused on recovering the story of Julia Pastrana, an indigenous
Mexican woman who performed throughout the eastern U.S. and Europe during the 1850s.
Find her work in her digital humanities project: Julia Pastrana Online.
Dr. Godfrey's areas of expertise include teaching writing, teacher leadership development,
English teaching methods, literacy studies, American Indian literary studies, and
U.S. women's writing.
Dr. Godfrey's most recent scholarship has focused on researching the life of Julia
Pastrana, an indigenous Mexican woman who performed in the U.S. and Europe during
the 19th century. She has presented her research as a digital humanities project,
providing extensive documentation of Pastrana's performances and critical/artistic
response.
She has also published in academic journals on various aspects of teaching and American
Indian literature including California English, Studies in American Indian Literature, Western American Literature, and Southwestern American Literature.
