Rate My Professor Lisa King

Lisa King serves as Associate Professor of English and Director of Composition at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She earned her PhD in Literature, Criticism, and Textual Analysis from the University of Oklahoma. King advanced to the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of English on August 1, 2018. Her academic career at the university includes prior service as an assistant professor of rhetoric and writing. As Director of Composition, she oversees first-year composition programs and has contributed to programmatic developments, such as the rethinking of the Rhetoric and Writing PhD Comprehensive Exam, as detailed in scholarly profiles.

King's research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary, centered on cultural rhetorics, with a specific emphasis on contemporary Native American and Indigenous rhetorics and communication methods. She is listed as an expert in these areas by the University of Tennessee Experts Guide. Key publications include her book Legible Sovereignties: Rhetoric, Representations, and Native American Museums, published by Oregon State University Press in 2019, which earned an Honorable Mention for the CCCC Outstanding Book Award in the Edited Collection category. In 2025, she co-edited Decolonial Possibilities: Indigenously Rooted Practices in Rhetoric and Writing. Other works encompass a review essay of Native American Rhetoric published in 2025 by New Mexico State University Press, articles such as 'Listening to Stories: Practicing Cultural Rhetorics Pedagogy' in 2018, and contributions to Composition Forum on strategic alliances in PhD programs. King has received the Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award from the University of Tennessee in 2019, the University of Tennessee Humanities Center Digital Humanities Fellowship for Spring 2023, a College of Arts and Sciences faculty recognition award in 2025, and a 2025 SECAC Award as co-curator of the Homelands exhibition at the McClung Museum, featuring contemporary Native American art. She serves on the PhD Admissions Committee, delivers public lectures like 'A Sense of Indigenous Place at UT,' and engages in university repatriation efforts and Native studies initiatives.