Nicole King is a professor in the Department of American Studies, an affiliate professor in the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program, and co-director of the Orser Center for Public Humanities at UMBC.
King’s research focuses on issues of place, power, and the tensions between historic preservation and economic development. Her first book Sombreros and Motorcycles in a Newer South: The Politics of Aesthetics in South Carolina’s Tourism Industry explores the issue of desegregation and the rise of the tourism industry in the U.S. South. She is a co-editor of the book Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City and co-founder of the Baltimore Traces: Communities in Transition public humanities project. She has published articles in the Journal of Urban History, Urban Affairs Review, and Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement as well as media outlets such as Newsweek, the Baltimore City Paper, and the Baltimore Beat. She has worked on developing non-extractive methods for university and community partnerships through the Baltimore Field School and serves as researcher for Organize Poppleton, a collective fighting to end displacement, preserve Black history, and stop the abuse of eminent domain law in Baltimore. Her work with Poppleton residents on the A Place Called Poppleton project shifted from a cultural documentation project to a collective narrative investigation that fought to save a block of homes in West Baltimore from being taken by eminent domain and demolished by the City of Baltimore for a misguided and long-stalled private redevelopment project. This work received the Outstanding Work in Preservation Award from Baltimore Heritage in 2022 and the Crystal Eagle Award, from a national group of eminent domain lawyers, and the Community Partnership Award from Economic Action Maryland in 2023. Her article, “A Place Called Poppleton: Investigating the Slow Violence of Redevelopment in West Baltimore,” was published in the Journal of Urban History in 2025. King is currently working on a book project, The Ungentrifiable City: Resisting the Developer Delusion on Baltimore’s Westside, 1975-2025.
Education
- PhD, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland College Park, 2008
- MA, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2001
Selected Publications
Books
- Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City (Rutgers University Press, 2019) – co-edited with Kate Drabinski and Joshua Clark Davis
- Sombreros and Motorcycles in a Newer South: The Politic of Aesthetics in South Carolina’s Tourism Industry (University Press of Mississippi, 2012)
Articles
- “A Place Called Poppleton: Investigating the Slow Violence of Redevelopment in West Baltimore,” Journal of Urban History, December 2025.
- Save Our Block: Public Humanities, Zines, and the Connecting the Classroom” in Daniel Fisher-Livne and Michelle May-Curry, eds. The Routledge Companion to Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship (London: Routledge, 2024), 158-177.
- “Rethinking the Field in Crisis: The Baltimore Field School and Building Ethical Community and University Partnerships” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Volume 28, Number 1, (2024) 63-79. (co-authored with Sarah Fouts and Tahira Mahdi)
- Co-author with Meghan Ashlin Rich, “Building Together” in Baltimore? Corporate Mega-Development and Coalitions for Community Power,” Urban Affairs Review, Volume 58 Issue 4, July 2022, 1028–1064, https://doi-org.proxy-bc.researchport.umd.edu/10.1177/10780874211021325.
- “Sounds of a City: Podcasts and Public Humanities in Baltimore,” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Volume 25, Number 1 (2021), 137-149.
- “Reckoning with Regionalism: Race, Place, and Power in Urban History,” Review Essay, Journal of Urban History (2021) Vol. 47(1) 209–214.
- “The Superblock: A Downtown Development Debacle, 2003-2015” in Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City (Rutgers University Press, 2019).
- “Community-Based Methods for Envisioning Deindustrialization: Mapping Baybrook and Mill Stories Projects of Baltimore, USA” in Onciul, B.A., Stefano, M.L., and Hawke, S., eds. Engaging Heritage: Engaging Communities (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2017), 119-137, co-authored with Michelle L. Stefano.
- “Preserving Places, Making Spaces in Baltimore: Seeing the Connections of Research, Teaching, and Service as Justice,” Journal of Urban History, May 2014, Vol. 40 (3), 425-449.
- “Behind the Sombrero: The Story of Identity and Power at South of the Border,1949-2001,” Anthony Stanonis, editor, Dixie Emporium: Consumerism, Tourism, and Memory in the American South (University of Georgia Press, 2008), 148-174.
Projects
- Baltimore Traces, 2014-present
- Mapping Baybrook, 2012-2015
Courses
- AMST 100: Introduction to American Studies
- AMST 200: What is an American?
- AMST 300: Approaches in American Studies
- AMST 380/480/680: Community in America
- AMST 422/682: Preserving Places, Making Spaces in Baltimore
- AMST 490: Senior Seminar
- PUBH 200: Introduction to Public Humanities
Media
“Profiles of Poppleton Residents,” Baltimore Beat, October 9, 2024.
Associated Press, “Baltimore’s Sonia Eaddy and Nicole King receive award for efforts to save historic Poppleton,” February 16, 2023.
Charles Cohen, “Opinion: After her eminent domain win in Poppleton, Sonia Eaddy’s fight is just beginning,” Baltimore Banner, August 17, 2022.
Interviewed by Tom Hall, “Saving Poppleton: How an urban development conflict was resolved,” WYPR [local public radio, 88.1] Midday with Tom Hall – aired July 27, 2022.
WMAR, “Bridging the Gap: Sarah Ann Street,” February 17, 2022.
Fern Shen, “City razes historic house in Poppleton two days after Save Our Block Rally,” Baltimore Brew, July 13, 2021.
WMAR, “West Baltimore residents hold ‘Save Our Block’ block party in Poppleton community,” July 11, 2021.
“Trump’s Dehumanizing Attacks on Baltimore are Hiding an Awful Truth–And He Knows It,” Newsweek, August 1, 2019.
Michelle Stefano, “On Remote Fieldwork and Shifting Gears,” Library of Congress: Folklife Today, May 15, 2020.
Libby Wiersema, “How South Carolina’s famous South of the Border still survives in modern times,” Post and Courier [Charleston, SC], July 8, 2017.
Bruce Vail, “Baltimore politicians are letting union jobs die while making way for luxury real estate,” In These Times, August 24, 2017, reprinted in Salon, September 4, 2017.
Nicky Woolf, “In Baltimore, Serial’s murder mystery is not just a whodunnit – it’s real life,” The Guardian, December 8, 2014.