“You taught me language, and my profit on ‘t Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!” (The Tempest, I.ii.362-4).

What does a home mean to you? Have you left it? How did you get there? Would you go back? Starting with the foundational travel narrative in Western literature, Homer’s The Odyssey…[Read more]

Where do we come from? Our families play an instrumental role in our development. Indeed, the idea of the individual, apart from the family, challenges notions of family as a continual process, as something permanent. How old is the idea that the individual can strike out on her own, separate from her family, and thus do as she pleases?…[Read more]

This panel was designed to address the convention’s featured issues of the academic profession, publishing & editing, open access, and new technologies. Using a roundtable format, the panel discussed how open access publications are transforming the kind of research that is possible and necessitating new editorial practices. The session hosted an…[Read more]

[from pp. 151-52:]

“Not only do we ourselves treat fictional characters as if they were capable of a broad variety of mental states (as real people are) to make sense of the story when we first read it; not only do we casually refer to these characters’ and the author’s mental states in our subsequent discussions with students; not only do we…[Read more]

My talk at the round table on Service Learning in Literary Studies about the necessity of failure in experiential learning.

My talk at the round table on Service Learning in Literary Studies about the necessity of failure in experiential learning.

This presentation explored the implications of constraints on due process and academic freedom in light of contingent faculty hiring.

This presentation explored the implications of constraints on due process and academic freedom in light of contingent faculty hiring.

Blog on writing about writing sessions from MLA 2016

Blog on writing about writing sessions from MLA 2016

PMLA Forum piece that argues for the direct and indirect value of the scholarly enterprise to the sacred art of teaching.

PMLA Forum piece that argues for the direct and indirect value of the scholarly enterprise to the sacred art of teaching.

I argue that The Elements of Style by Strunk and White comes out of a history connecting it to the nineteenth century “conversation handbook” (Connors) and other cultural guides to middlebrow identity formation including The Book-Of-The-Month Club. The Elements of Style is a guide to a genteel language performance rooted in the racialized,…[Read more]

I argue that The Elements of Style by Strunk and White comes out of a history connecting it to the nineteenth century “conversation handbook” (Connors) and other cultural guides to middlebrow identity formation including The Book-Of-The-Month Club. The Elements of Style is a guide to a genteel language performance rooted in the racialized,…[Read more]

This is a longer version of my conference paper, in which I provide some ideas on how to merge scholarship on 18th-c France, especially the revolutionary period, with the kinds of advocacy promoted by the MLA. I foreground exciting new work done by colleagues in the US, UK, and Italy, and provide a “sneak peek” at materials to be included in the…[Read more]

In this free workshop, children and preteens (age 8-12) creatively explore and expand their sense of self by thinking and writing about their life – past, present, and future. Group activities, games, solitary writing, and illustrating provide for a fun and productive setting. Students will receive individual attention and gradually realize how…[Read more]