Dr. Elizabeth Giddens

Professor of English

egiddens@kennesaw.edu 
Office: EB 130

Elizabeth Giddens teaches courses in professional writing, rhetoric, and environmental writing and literature as a professor of English at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. In the MAPW program, she has taught Introduction to Professional Writing, Public Policy Writing, Public Service Writing, Managing Writing in Organizations, Proposal and Grant Writing, Research Methods for Writers, Feature Writing, Academic and Professional Editing, among other courses.

She studies environmental rhetoric and nonfiction and has authored and coauthored pieces in Sustainability (2019), Environment and Pedagogy in Higher Education (2018), Encyclopedia of the Environment in American Literature (2013), Teaching Ecocriticism and Green Cultural Studies (2011), Appalachian Journal (2011), Smokies Life (2018 and 2010), Sustainability: Rhetorics, Literacies and Narratives (2009), Community Literacy Journal (2009), College Composition and Communication (2007), and Rhetoric Review (1993). In 2023, the University of North Carolina Press published her book, Oconaluftee: The History of a Smoky Mountain Valley about people who lived in Oconaluftee Valley from prehistory to 1940. The valley includes the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians and a part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The book was a finalist for both The Weatherford Award for Best Books about Appalachia (nonfiction, 2023) from Berea College and the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award from the Asheville Museum of History. Dr. Giddens was the 2024 winner in History of the GAYA (Georgia Author of the Year) award from the Georgia Writers Association.

Before coming to KSU in 2001, Dr. Giddens held positions as a communication analyst at RAND in Santa Monica, CA, and as communications director for the RAND Institute for Civil Justice. While at RAND, she was a member of the author team, led by Deborah R. Hensler, of Class Action Dilemmas: Pursuing Public Goals for Private Gain, published in 2000, where she also authored or coauthored many documents. She served as publications editor and associate director for communications at the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, GA, and edited The SREB Fact Book on Higher Education while there in the 1990s. She was a co-editor of Hiking Trails of the Smokies originally published in 1994 by the Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association. In the 1980s, she worked as a technical writer at Spinlab, Inc. in Knoxville. Her degrees in English were awarded by The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

• Concentration Area(s)
  • Applied Writing
• MAPW Courses Taught
  • PRWR 6000 Intro to Professional Writing
  • PRWR 6240 Technical Writing
  • PRWR 6255 Grant & Proposal Writing
  • PRWR 6260 Managing Writing in Organizations
  • PRWR 6410 Feature Writing
  • PRWR 6440 Professional and Academic Editing
  • PRWR 7550 Advanced Applied Writing
  • PRWR 7810 Research Methods for Writers
• Select Publications
  • Oconaluftee: The History of a Smoky Mountain Valley (The University of North Carolina Press, 2023)