CJL Consulting

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Dr. Crystal J. Lucky is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at Villanova University, where she has taught since 1996.  She has served in a number of leadership capacities at the university, including the interim chair of the Political Science department from 2022-2023 and the director of the Africana Studies Program from 2005-2015.  Dr. Lucky teaches a wide range of courses in African American literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century, including African American women’s literature, the Harlem Renaissance, and the works of novelist Toni Morrison and playwright August Wilson.  Before joining the faculty at Villanova University, she held teaching appointments at Washington College in Chestertown, MD, Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, CA, and the University of Maryland's European Division in Germany.

Dr. Lucky has published articles on African American women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth century and a critical edition of the autobiography of the Rev. Charlotte Riley, a nineteenth-century black preaching woman born into South Carolina slavery.  A Mysterious Life and Calling: From Slavery to Ministry in South Carolina, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press (2016) (https://uwpress.wordpress.com/) and was picked by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) as the only non-fiction book of its list of thirteen books chosen as an annual ‘Okra Pick’ (http://www.sibaweb.com/okra).  The book was also nominated for the 2016 Albert C. Outler prize given by the American Society of Church History.  She is currently working on two book projects: On the Threshing Floor: Representations of African American Women’s Piety, which traces the image of the black pious woman in nineteenth and twentieth- century American literature and culture; and Relentless Hearts: The Story of Debbie and Michael Africa, two members of the MOVE 9, and their journey to be reunited with their family after their 40-year prison sentence from 1978-2018.     

Finally, for over twenty-five years, Dr. Lucky has worked as a diversity consultant with teachers and administrators at a wide range of public and private secondary schools on curriculum enhancement and multicultural community building. Crystal J. Lucky holds a Th. D. in Biblical Studies from Manna Bible College of Wilson, NC (2019), a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania (1999), an M.A. in African American Studies from Yale University (1989) and a B.A. in English and Communications from the University of Pennsylvania (1985).