My primary field is comparative modernism. Studying the English, Irish, American, and Russian literary traditions, I explore the complex interrelation between literary innovation and history in the turbulent opening decades of the twentieth century. I enjoy teaching a broad range of courses in British and Irish literature, the Western literary tradition, and twentieth-century literature.
I am currently working on a book manuscript entitled “Modernism's Homer: The Wars and Odysseys of H.D., James Joyce, Osip Mandelstam, and Ezra Pound” that tracks the presence of the Homeric epic in the sociopolitical and literary projects of international modernist writing. I argue that writers like James Joyce, Ezra Pound, H. D., and Osip Mandelstam did not adapt the ancient Greek epic to flee from their eras into an idealized classical past; rather, these modernist writers appropriated the Odyssey to address some of their era’s most pressing concerns, from global warfare and empire to racial hatred, tyranny, and censorship. In responding to these urgent issues, these adaptations produced some of the century’s most astonishing art.
My research interests reflect the passion I bring to the classroom for helping students to draw connections between literary texts and sociocultural contexts as we begin to see the literary tradition handed down over the centuries as a living, evolving, contested, and fascinating conversation in which students are invited to participate.
Teaching Fields
- Modernist Literature
- Twentieth-Century Literature
- British and Irish Literature
- The Western Literary Tradition
Office Hours
SPRING 2012
- MW 3:15-4:45
Teaching Schedule
SPRING 2012
- 1302/101 MWF 9:00-9:50 DS456
- 1302/102 MWF 10:00-10:50 DS456
- 4610/101 MW 2:00-3:15 DS475
Research Interests
- Comparative Modernism (British, Irish, American, Russian)
- Reception and Genre Studies
- Irish literature
- Literature and national identity
- Censorship
Selected Publications
- “Coming Home to Joyce.” James Joyce Quarterly 46, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 201-204.
Honors/Awards
- Received a Summer Faculty Fellowship 2011.
- Received a Faculty Development Award to present a paper called "Slinging in Licherary Langwidg": Ezra Pound, W.H.D. Rouse, and a Modern Odyssey" at the Ezra Pound and London Conference. London. July 2011.
- Will present "'What these Ithacas Mean': the Homeric Nostos in Modernist Poetry" at the conference "War, the Odyssey, and Narratives of Return". University of South Carolina, March 2011.
- Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, Woodrow Wilson Foundation
English Department
