EDUCATION
Ph.D., August 2014, English Literature (Women’s & Gender Studies Minor), Louisiana State University
Dissertation: Lopsided, Scarred, and Squint-Eyed: Ugly Women in the Work of Twentieth Century Southern Women Writers
M.A., 2010, English Literature, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
B.A., 2008, English Literature (Summa Cum Laude/Honors in English), University of Tennessee-Knoxville
PROFESSIONAL HISTORY
Assistant Professor, Middle Georgia State University, Fall 2017-present
Director, Summer Scholars Program, Middle Georgia State University, 2018.
Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, Georgia Institute of Technology, Fall 2014-Summer 2017
Assistant Director, Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, Fall 2015-Summer 2017
Acting Associate Director, Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, Summer 2016
PUBLICATIONS
Monograph
Being Ugly: Southern Women Writers and Social Rebellion (Louisiana State University Press, Southern Literary Studies, 2017).
Journal Articles
“Only Southerness: Flannery O’Connor and R.E.M.” Flannery O’Connor Review (Forthcoming).
“‘I’m No Swan’: The Ugly Plot of Eating the Cheshire Cat.” Mississippi Quarterly (Accepted for publication; forthcoming Fall 2017).
“Looking Ugliness Square in the Face.” Mississippi Quarterly 68.1-2 (Winter-Spring 2015).
“Material Matters and Millinery Work in The House of Mirth.” South Atlantic Review 82.1 (March 2017).
“‘No man with a good car needs to be justified’: Preaching Rock and Roll Salvation from O’Connor’s Wise Blood to Ministry’s ‘Jesus Built My Hotrod.’” Flannery O’Connor Review (Summer 2014).
“Eudora Welty Research Fellowship, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Summer 2012.” Eudora Welty Review 5 (Spring 2013).
“Reading as Initiation: Ceremonial Metanarratives in Mayra Montero’s The Messenger.” OFO: Journal of Transatlantic Studies (Volume 1, Issue 2: December 2011).
“Gothic Revelations of Marriage in The Witch of Ravensworth and The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey.” Studies in Gothic Fiction (Volume 1, Issue 1: 2010).
“A Loa in These Hills: Voudou and the Ineffable in Lee Smith's On Agate Hill.” Journal of Appalachian Studies (Volume 15, Numbers 1 and 2: Spring and Fall 2009).
Chapters in Edited Collections
“What Mountains Move: Magical Realism in Appalachian Literature.” Seeking Home: Marginalization and Representation in Appalachian Letters and Song. Eds. Jürgen E. Grandt and Leslie Worthington. (University of Tennessee Press, 2017).
“Fear/Vulnerability/Anger: Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter” Growing Up With Mockingbird: Re-Reading Harper Lee. (Forthcoming, University of Tennessee Press)
“Flannery O’Connor, ‘Interleckchuls,’ and Cocktail Culture.” Southern Comforts. (Forthcoming, Louisiana State University Press.)
“Designing Women and Its Post-Southern, Post-Feminist Legacy.” Small Screen Souths: Interrogating the Televisual Archive. Louisiana State University Press (Louisiana State University Press 2017).
“Working Women: Rural Life in the Work of O’Connor.” Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor. (Forthcoming University of Mississippi Press).
“Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker: Region Without Nostalgia.” Critical Insights: Flannery O’Connor. Salem Press (2016).
“What Neil Gaiman Teaches Us About Survival: Making Good Art and Diving into the Ocean.” Neil Gaiman in the Twenty-first Century. McFarland Press (2015).
“Feminist Fairy Tales in Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman. Eds. Tara Prescott and Aaron Drucker. McFarland Press (2012).
Book Reviews
The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, by Cathy N. Davidson. Culture in Focus 1.1 (2018).
Keywords for Southern Studies, eds. Jennifer Rae Greeson and Scott Romine. European Journal of American Cultures 37.1 (2018).
Upon Provincialism: Southern Literature and National Periodical Culture, 1870-1900 by Bill Hardwig and Rural Fictions, Urban Realities: A Geography of Gilded Age American Literature by Mark Storey. American Literature 87.2 (June 2015).
Online Publications
“Teaching Argument Writing: Use Manifestos with Gifted Youth.” Duke TIP Teachers Workshop. July 2, 2019.
A Different South: Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers. Gale Research Guide. August 28, 2018.
"From Page to Stage! Experimenting with Shakespeare." Duke TIP Lesson Blueprints. May 1, 2018.
“Argument Fallacies: Avoid These, Please!” Duke TIP Lesson Blueprints. November 21, 2017.
"Book Notes: Being Ugly." Largehearted Boy. July 17, 2017.
"The Hope of Dystopia." Duke TIP Notes. April 17, 2017.
"Using Social Media for Research and Collaboration." Ivan Allen College Newsletter. February 23, 2017.
"Flannery Fandom." Andalusia, Home of Flannery O'Connor. December 23, 2015.
“In Defense of the Irritated Young Woman.” The Flannery O’Connor Society. September 14, 2015.
“Play Day!” Bedford Bits: Ideas for Teaching Composition. April 14, 2015.
“Flannery and Her Mother.” Andalusia, Home of Flannery O’Connor. October 2014.
“Throwing Like a Girl, Acting Like a Grad Student.” ChronicleVitae.com. February 27, 2014.
“What I Did On My Summer Vacation.” University of Venus: GenX Women in Higher Ed, Writing from Across the Globe. October 21, 2012.
“Let’s Talk About Plagiarism,” University of Venus: GenX Women in Higher Ed, Writing from Across the Globe. July 22, 2011.
HONORS AND AWARDS
Grants Awarded
Georgia Tech Fire Grant. “Embedded Artists in First Year Composition: Multimodal Communication that Engages the Arts.” 2016-2017 ($30,000)
Ina Dillard Russell Library Research Grant Award. Georgia College. 2016-2017.
Society for the Study of Southern Literature Graduate Student Travel Award, 2014
Mary Lily Research Grant, Sponsored by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, 2013
Eudora Welty Research Fellowship, Co-sponsored by the Eudora Welty Foundation and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2012
Prizes and Other Awards
Governor's Teaching Fellows, University System of Georgia, 2018-2019.
Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service. Georgia Tech Writing and Communication Program, 2017.
Thank a Teacher Award, Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning, 2017.
Georgia Tech Softball Professor Appreciation Day, March, 2017.
Josephine A. Roberts Alumni Association Distinguished Dissertation in Arts, Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences. Louisiana State University, 2015
Selected Participant, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “Reconsidering Flannery O'Connor,” 2014
Women’s and Gender Studies Outstanding WGS Graduate Teaching Assistant, 2014
Dickens Project Essay Prize, Dickens Universe/LSU English Department, 2013
Women’s and Gender Studies Outstanding Graduate Minor, 2013
Women’s and Gender Studies Annette Massé and Beatrice Remillard Award for Outstanding Non-Traditional Student, LSU Women’s and Gender Studies, 2012
Jim Springer Borck Essay Prize, “Rewriting the Romance in the Neoslave Narrative,” LSU, 2012
PRESENTATIONS
Panels Organized
“Teaching Difficult Subjects.” Women's Caucus for the Modern Langauges, Modern Langauge Association, Philadelphia, January 2017.
“Abortion: The Stories We Tell.” Women's Studies Session, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Jacksonville, FL, Fall 2016.
“Utopia/Dystopia: Wharton's Land of Letters.” Edith Wharton Society Session, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Fall 2016.
“ The Tacky South.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Boston, March 2016.
“Trigger Warnings.” Organized and moderated roundtable discussion, Modern Language Association, Austin, Texas, January 2016.
“Contemporary Counterplots in Southern Literature.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Arlington, Virginia, March 2014.
“The Customs of Many Countries: The Worlds of Edith Wharton.” Edith Wharton Society Session, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, 2013.
Papers Presented
Women’s and Gender Studies
“White Privilege and Abortion Narratives.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association. Jacksonville, Florida. Fall 2016.
“Sisterhood is Haunted: The Specter of Abortion in Edith Wharton’s Summer” South Atlantic Modern Language Associations, Durham, NC, Fall 2015.
“Graduate Student Activism on the Post-Feminist Campus.” Modern Language Association, Chicago, Illinois, January 2014.
“Throwing Like a Girl, Acting Like a Grad Student.” Modern Language Association, Chicago, Illinois, January 2014.
Profession Issues
“Faculty Learning Community Round Table on ‘The Graduate Mindset.’” 2019 Georgia Council of Graduate Schools Conference, Atlanta, GA, May 17, 2019.
“Assessment on a Shoestring: Accreditation, Infrastructure, Faculty Development, and Pedagogical Effectiveness.” Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Knoxville, TN, July 2017.
“Embedded Artists in the First-Year, Multimodal Classroom.” Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Knoxville, TN, July 2017.
“Quilts: Self-Taught Art, Southern Artifacts, and Multimodal Composition.” Poster presentation. Georgia Tech Celebrating Teaching Day, Center for Teaching and Learning, March 2017.
“Maker Culture as a Pedagogical Philosophy.” Poster presentation. Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Conference, Atlanta, GA, November, 2016.
“Remembering Harper Lee: Multimodal Commemoration.” Poster presentation. Georgia Tech Celebrating Teaching Day, Center for Teaching and Learning, March 2016.
“Maker Culture in the First Year, Multimodal Composition Classroom.” Georgia Tech Postdoctoral Research Symposium, September, 2016.
“The Many Tracks to WPA Work.” Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Raleigh, NC, July 2016.
“The Places and Spaces of Writing Program Administration.” Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Raleigh, NC, July 2016.
“The Classroom as Makerspace.” Poster presentation. Georgia Tech Celebrating Teaching Day, Center for Teaching and Learning, March 2015.
American Studies
“Finding Edith Wharton: Archival Discoveries and the Public Imagination.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, Georgia, Fall 2017.
“Edith Wharton and the Sustainable Self.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, Georgia, Fall 2014.
“Cloche Call: Material Matters and Millinery Work in The House of Mirth.” Edith Wharton in Florence Conference, Florence, Italy, Summer 2012.
Southern Studies
“Maternity and Ambivalence in ‘A Stroke of Good Fortune.’” The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, Louisville, Kentucky. February 2018.
“Wrestling with Angels: The Plantation Novel Within the Gay Fantasia.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Austin, Texas, February 2018.
“Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor” (Roundtable participant). Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Austin, Texas, February 2018.
“Working Women in the Work of O’Connor.” The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, Louisville, Kentucky. February, 2017.
“She Let Herself Go: Tackiness as Self-Empowerment in the Work of Lee Smith.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Boston, Massachusetts, March 2016.
“Drag Designing Women.” American Literature Association Symposium: The City in American Literature, New Orleans, Louisiana, Fall 2015.
“Flannery O'Connor and Donna Tartt: Portrayal and Pursuit of the Sublime.” Flannery O’Connor and Other Southern Women Writers Conference, Milledgeville, Georgia, Fall 2015.
“Never Been Anywhere but Sick: Reconsidering Flannery O'Connor's Sense of Place.” Southern American Studies Association, Atlanta, Georgia, Spring, 2015.
“‘Today I Have Proved Myself a Glutton’: Gluttony in ‘The Lame Shall Enter First.’” American Literature Association Symposium: God and the American Writer. San Antonio, Texas, Spring 2015.
“‘I’m No Swan’: The Ugly Plot of Eating the Cheshire Cat.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Arlington, Virginia, March 2014.
“Carson McCullers: A Case Study of the Ugly Plot.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, Georgia, Fall 2013.
“What Men Seldom Realized: Beauty (and Its Lack) in Gone With the Wind.” Berry Southern Women Writers Conference, Rome, Georgia, Fall 2012.
“Lopsided and Squint-Eyed: Some Aspects of Ugly Women in the Short Fiction of Welty and O’Connor.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Durham, North Carolina, Fall 2012.
“The Petrifying Women: Ugly Women in Eudora Welty’s Curtain of Green.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Nashville, Tennessee, Spring 2012.
“‘No man with a good car needs to be justified’: Ministry’s ‘Jesus Built My Hotrod’ as a Counterpoint for Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, Fall 2011.
“The Relocation of the Southern Imaginary in Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend.” Southern American Studies Association, Atlanta, Georgia, Spring 2011.
“When the Ghosts Have Gone: The Post-Mythic South in Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, Spring 2010.
“Fairy Elves by a Forest Side: Lee Smith’s Use of Fairies in On Agate Hill as a Connection to the Global South.” Berry Southern Women Writers Conference, Rome, Georgia, Fall 2009.
“A Loa in These Hills: Voudou and the Ineffable in Lee Smiths’s On Agate Hill.” Appalachian Studies Association Conference, Portsmouth, Ohio, Spring, 2009.
Invited Presentations
Invited Speaker, “Converging: Reading Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker in the Multimodal Classroom.” Flannery O’Connor Memorial Lecture, Georgia College and State University, April 2019.
Invited Speaker, “She Let Herself Go: The Ugly Plots of Southern Women Writers.” English Department, Georgia Southwestern University, October 2018.
Invited Speaker, “Alternate Routes in Academia.” English Department, Louisiana State University, October 2018.
Invited Speaker, “Being Ugly: Southern Women Writers and Social Rebellion,” University of Tennessee-Knoxville, March 2018.
Invited Panel Participant, “Job Opportunities in Professional and Technical Writing.” Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2018.
Invited Speaker, “What Can You Do with an English Major?” English Department, Middle Georgia State University, Fall 2017.
Invited Speaker, “Communicating our Research Electronically: Websites, Blogs, and Social Media.” Ivan Allen College ADVANCE Network for Women, Georgia Institute of Technology, February 2017.
Invited Speaker, “Let Yourself Go.” About South Podcast 1.5 (August 2016).
Invited Speaker and Workshop Facilitator, “Multimodal Composition.” Mississippi College English Department, April 1, 2016.
Invited Speaker, “Maker Philosophy in the Classroom,” Student View Art Exhibit, Georgia Institute of Technology, April 2016.
Invited Speaker, “Georgia Blood and Southern Love: Lost in the Stacks Live!” WREK, March 1, 2016.
Invited Speaker, “The Friendliest Bed in Town: Milledgeville, Prostitution, and Leora Watts.” Andalusia Lecture Series, February 14, 2016.
Invited Speaker, “Nailing the Campus Visit.” Brittain Fellows Professional Development Committee, February 5, 2016.
Invited Speaker, “Flannery O’Connor,” Lost in the Stacks Radio Show, WREK, August 7, 2015.
Invited Speaker, “Flannery O’Connor.” Brooks and Warren Literati Dinner, LSU Department of English, April 16, 2015.
Panels Organized
“Teaching Difficult Subjects.” Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages, Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, January, 2017.
“Abortion: The Stories We Tell.” Women’s Studies Session, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Jacksonville, FL, Fall 2016.
“Utopia/Dystopia: Wharton’s Land of Letters.” Edith Wharton Society Session, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Jacksonville, FL, Fall 2016.
“The Tacky South.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Boston, March, 2016.
“Trigger Warnings.” Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages, Modern Language Association, Austin, TX, January 2016.
“Contemporary Counterplots in Southern Literature.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Arlington, VA, March 2014.
“The Customs of Many Countries: The Worlds of Edith Wharton.” Edith Wharton Society Session, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, GA, 2013.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Middle Georgia State University (2017-present)
English 1101 (First Year Composition)
English 1102 (First Year Composition)
English 2111 (World Literature)
English 2132 (Survey of American Literature, Part II)
Professional Writing 3160 (Introduction to Professional Communication)
Professional Writing 4160 (Advanced Professional Writing, Experiential Learning Credit)
Georgia Institute of Technology (2014-2017)
English 1101 (Multimodal Composition): Maker Culture
English 1102 (Multimodal Composition): The American Gothic
English 1102 (Multimodal Composition): From Mockingbird to Watchman
English 1102 (Multimodal Composition): American Movement and Migration
Louisiana State University (2010-2014)
English 2025 (Introduction to Fiction): Southern Women Writers
English 2025 (Introduction to Fiction): The Many Souths
English 2001: Advanced Composition for Nursing Majors
English 2000: Second Year English Composition
English 1001: First Year English Composition
Women’s & Gender Studies 2500: Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies
Duke University Talent Identification Program
E-Studies (Summer 2016, Summer 2017)
After the Apocalypse: Critical Studies in Film and Literature (2017-2018)
Summer Residential Program
All the World's a Stage: Shakespeare in Performance (Summer 2015)
Writing with Power (Summer 2015)
Shakespearience: From the Stage to the Page (Summer 2012)
University of Tennessee-Knoxville, 2008-2010
English 101: First Year Composition
English 102 (First Year Composition): Inquiry into the American South
English 101: First Year Composition (Graduate Assistant)
English 102 (First Year Composition): Inquiry into the Millennial Generation (Graduate Assistant)
RESEARCH/ARCHIVAL EXPERIENCE
Research Task Force, Louisiana Women’s Policy and Research Commission, 2013-2014.
Research Assistant, Professor Michelle Massé, Director of Graduate Studies, LSU Department of English, 2012-2014
Special Collections Library, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, January-August, 2008; Summer, 2009
LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE POSITIONS
Discipline Service
President, Flannery O’Connor Society, Spring 2018-present
Editorial Advisory Board, Flannery O’Connor Review, Spring 2018-present
Delegate Assembly, Modern Language Association LLC Southern United States, 2018-2021.
Co-Curator, February Four Speaker Series, Andalusia Farm. February 2017.
Co-editor, Mississippi Quarterly Special Issue: “Manifestos.” Winter-Spring 2015..
Executive Board Member, Emerging Scholars Organization, Society for the Study of Southern Literature, 2014-2016
Executive Board, Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages, 2011-present
Executive Board, Carson McCullers Society, 2014-2016
Peer Reviewer, PMLA, The Flannery O’Connor Review, 2016.
Department Service
Chair, Textbook Committee, Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-present
A Long Walk to Water Workgroup, Collaboration between Georgia Institute of Technology Writing and Communication Program and Centennial Academy, 2016-present
Assessment Committee, Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-present
Grant-Writing Committee, Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-present
African American Studies Faculty Search Committee Member, Louisiana State University, 2012-2013
Sarah Liggett Teaching Award Selection Committee, Louisiana State University, 2013
President, Women’s and Gender Studies Graduate Student Organization, Louisiana State University, 2012-2013
Vice-President, Women’s and Gender Studies Graduate Student Organization, Louisiana State University, 2013-2014
Professional Development Co-Chair, English Graduate Student Association, Louisiana State University, 2012-2013
Secretary and Liaison for Professionalization and Pedagogy, Women’s and Gender Studies Graduate Student Organization, Louisiana State University, 2011-2012
First Year Composition Pilot Program, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Fall 2009
University Service
Academic Director, Summer Scholars Program, Middle Georgia State University, Fall 2017-present
Faculty Learning Community on Mindset in Graduate Education, Middle Georgia State University, Spring 2019-present
Faculty Recognition Committee, Middle Georgia State University, Fall 2018-present
Ivan Allen Archive Digitization Project Workgroup, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-2017.
Co-facilitator, Faculty Learning Community on Gathering and Responding to Teaching Feedback. Center for Teaching and Learning, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-2017.
Project One Planning Committee, Georgia Institute of Technol0gy, 2016
Library Hiring Committee, Georgia Institute of Technology, Spring 2016.
Programming Committee, NEXUS Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Spring 2010
Graduate Student Senate Liaison, Graduate Students in English Organization, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, 2009-2010
PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS
Professional and Technical Communication; Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; American Literature, Literature of the American South; Appalachian Literature; Feminist and Gender Theory; Queer Theory; Maker, DIY, and Punk Cultures