Research

My work is framed by a transatlantic approach to nineteenth-century literature, one which emphasizes the overlapping and parallel conversations occurring in British and American culture and necessarily incorporates postcolonial perspectives. In particular, I’m interested in representations of work and education in nineteenth-century novels. My current research explores how African American writers in the nineteenth century explored different options for converting educational and cultural capital into financial remuneration.

Dissertation

My dissertation, “Equivocal Enlightenment: Theorizing the Autodidact in the Nineteenth Century,” analyzes how writers utilized literature to examine the role that the relatively new phenomenon of autodidacticism (self-learning) played in nineteenth-century culture and education. This study juxtaposes such seemingly disparate works like Charles Kingsley’s Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet (1850) and Frederick Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) against George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig (1859). The Industrial Revolution brought with it a major shift in our approach to work and education. Once again, we are on the precipice of a changing society as technology alters the way we live our lives. Studying approaches to autodidacticism in the nineteenth-century, I argue, can help us reimagine higher education in the twenty-first.

Publications

“Abetting ‘Literary Sins’: The Dickensian and the Drood Phenomenon.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 55, no. 1 (Spring 2022), pp. 51-71.

Talks & Presentations

“Acts of Disobedience: Mapping Alton Locke onto Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,”

Victorians Institute Conference, North Carolina State University, October 7-8, 2023.

“One Syllabus, Three Ways.” University of Connecticut Conference on the Teaching of First-Year Writing, University of Connecticut, April 14, 2023.
“Paralyzed by Empathy? Another View of Ebenezer Scrooge,” Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, Johns Hopkins University, March 10-13, 2022.
“The Studio Experience,” University of Connecticut Early College Experience Spring Conference (virtual), University of Connecticut, March 31, 2022.
“Designing A Course Inquiry,” University of Connecticut Early College Experience Spring Conference (virtual), University of Connecticut, March 31, 2022.
“Jane Eyre and the Circle of Feminine Pedagogy,” British Women Writers Conference, Auburn University, April 25-27, 2019.
Keynote Speaker. Berkshire Community College Second Annual Undergraduate Scholars Conference, Berkshire Community College, December 15, 2017.

Areas of Research & Teaching Interests

British and American literature in the long nineteenth-century
Drama (Shakespearean, Jacobean and Restoration, modern)
First-Year writing
Arts management
Professional writing
Queer theory
Feminist theory
Meaningful work
Education
Social mobility