My work as a teacher and scholar focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literature. In addition to teaching survey courses, I also teach more specialized topics in early American literature, including courses on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, the American Renaissance, and American writers abroad. In addition, I teach literary criticism and the history of children's literature, courses which range more broadly through the British and American traditions.
I recently published my first book, In the Company of Books: Literature and Its "Classes" in Nineteeth-Century America (2006). This study investigates nineteenth-century publishing practices, in particular the segmentation of the literary marketplace. Although this book grew out of my doctoral dissertation, its prehistory dates to five years I spent working on the editorial side of the publishing business. Trying to figure out which books to publish and how to get the right books into the right hands made me wonder how authors and publishers in nineteenth-century America dealt with similar challenges. Along the way, my research for this book deepened my acquaintance with such writers as Hawthorne , Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, William Dean Howells, and Henry James, as well as an array of lesser known writers.
My current research revolves around the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition ( Chicago World's Fair) and a landmark collection of women's writing that was gathered together and displayed there. This library is the subject of a monograph I am writing collaboratively with library historian Wayne A. Wiegand of Florida State University , as well as of a special volume of essays that I edited for the journal Libraries and Culture (Winter 2006). The Chicago World's Fair was a momentous event in American history, and the library of the fair's Woman's Building offers seemingly endless opportunities for exploring the impact of gender and region on print culture at the time of this cultural watershed.
Teaching Fields
- American Literature
- Literary Criticism
- Children's Literature
Office Hours
FALL 2009
- M 2:00-2:45
- WF 11:00-11:45 and 2:00-2:45
Teaching Schedule
FALL 2009
- 2510 - MWF - 10:00
- 2510 - MWF - 1:00
- 4710/4996/102(Sr. Exp) - MWF - 12:00
Research Interests
- 18th- and 19th-century American Literature
- History of the Book
- Literature and "place" (regionalism, travel writing)
- Intersections between American history and literature
- Gender and reading
- Children's Literature
Selected Publications
- In the Company of Books: Literature and Its "Classes" in Nineteenth-Century America. Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006
- "Social Reading, Social Work, and the Social Function of Literacy in Louisa May Alcott's 'May Flowers.'" Reading Women: Literary Figures and Cultural Icons from the Victorian Age to the Present. Ed. Janet Badia and Jennifer Phegley. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005; rpt. 2006. 149-67. Rpt. In Short Story Criticism 98. Ed. Jelena Krstovic. Gale Group.
- Editor, Libraries & Culture 41.1 (Winter 2006). Special volume on the Woman's Building Library of the Worlds Columbian Exposition.
- "Travel Reading and Travel Writing in Louisa May Alcotts A Garland for Girls."The Traveling and Writing Self. Ed. Marguerite Helmers and Tilar Mazzeo. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007. 116-32.
Honors/Awards
- Faculty Development Grant, Graduate School, Marquette University (for travel to Oslo, Norway to present at the European Association for American Studies conference, May 9-12, 2008).
- Summer Faculty Fellowship, Graduate School, Marquette University, 2004, College of Arts & Sciences, 2005
- Finalist, Society of Fellows Junior Fellowship, Harvard University
- American Fellowship (Summer / Short-Term Research Publication Grant), American Association of University Women, 2002 V2003
- Carnegie-Whitney Award (with Wayne Wiegand), American Library Association, 2002
- Leon Edel Prize, The Henry James Review, 2001
- Houghton Mifflin Fellowship in Publishing History, Houghton Library, Harvard University, 2000 V2001
English Department
