Theories of the public sphere and of imagined political communities of shared reading have had lasting effects on the theoretical conceptualization of Americanist book history, but they also largely overlook the materiality of texts in ways that early and nineteenth-century American readers and writers did not. This essay reads early and…[Read more]

This essay examines a longstanding normative assumption in the historiography of slavery in the Atlantic world: that enslaved Africans and their American-born descendants were bought and sold as “commodities,” thereby “dehumanizing” them and treating them as things rather than as persons. Such claims have, indeed, helped historians concept…[Read more]

This essay examines a longstanding normative assumption in the historiography of slavery in the Atlantic world: that enslaved Africans and their American-born descendants were bought and sold as “commodities,” thereby “dehumanizing” them and treating them as things rather than as persons. Such claims have, indeed, helped historians concept…[Read more]

Sentimental fiction and domestic novels elevated the female voice, giving authority to the womanly experience as wives, mothers, and women. Novels such as Maria Susanna Cummins’s The Lamplighter and Sara Payson Willis’s Ruth Hall adopted the ideology of feminine behavior and womanliness while, implying tones of dissatisfaction with the role and…[Read more]

This paper will be presented at the upcoming South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) conference Nov.3-6 in Jacksonville, FL. The research is a part of my thesis project that will be completed in spring 2017.

This article discusses changes that Mary Kingsley made to her 1897 Travels in West Africa when she abridged the text for a general audience.

English 3386 equips students for critical encounters with the texts, images, sounds, and situations that constitute American life, politics, history, and culture. This section is organized around the theme of “Versioning Digital Humanities.” Many texts go through various “versions” as they are revised for republications, corrected for new edition…[Read more]

Selected works from the literatures of former European colonies: African, Indian, Caribbean, Australian, Canadian, Latin American, etc. Colonialism waned in the 1940s through 60s amidst decolonization movements, yet globalization flourished in often unnoticed, hegemonic pathways. Considering cultural products of this moment leads us to ask what…[Read more]

The emergence of the digital humanities in specialized disciplines and librarianship alike necessitates a recalibration of the balance of knowledge and what Julia Flanders calls “metaknowledge.” DH in the disciplines has brought discussion of metaknowledge – data structures, archival and editorial standards, digital curation and representation -…[Read more]

Panelists explore the research impact of digital scholarship. How is it enabling novel yet critical questions and discoveries otherwise unimaginable? What new paradigms for authorship, attribution, scholarly work, audience, and value are emerging? If research and teaching inform each other, how does their give-and-take play out for humanists…[Read more]

A description of a successful team-taught introductory literature/DH course on “Identity, Ethnicity, and the Digital Humanities” at Washington & Jefferson College.