Assistant Professor
My primary field is twentieth-century American literature, with an emphasis on the pre-WWII period. My research focuses on revisionist and recuperative approaches to American literary history. I am particularly interested in examining institutional and disciplinary discourses about literature as well as the agency of the literary in and against institutional and/or “official” discourses. Currently, I am at work on a book project on the literary history and literary recovery of 1930s writers and cultural movements. I argue that the recuperation of thirties authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, Michael Gold, Tillie Olsen, and James Agee has been formative for culturalist and identitarian concepts of class in American literary studies.
I enjoy teaching a broad range of themes and genres in twentieth and twenty-first century American literature and culture. I have taught courses on poverty in the US literary imagination, modern and contemporary American fiction, and, more generally, surveys of American literature from the Civil War to the present. In addition to teaching literature, I also enjoy teaching film and topics in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies.
Teaching Fields
- 20th c. American Literature
- Cultural studies
- Film
Office Hours
Spring 2013
- TU 9:30-10:30; 12:30-1:30
- THUR 9:30-10:30
Teaching Schedule
Spring 2013
- 2520/106 American Lit II TUTH 8:00-9:15 LL296
- 4550/101 American Modernism TUTH 11:00-12:15 Cramer 046
Research Interests
- 1930s US literature and culture
- American modernisms
- Theories of literary history and canon formation
- History of the novel
Selected Publications
Honors/Awards
Regular Research Grant, Marquette University, 2012
Summer Faculty Fellowship, Marquette University, 2012
English Department
