Educational Background
- D., English Literature, Georgia State University
- A., English, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- A., English, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Courses Taught
- Foundations of English Composition
- Composition I
- Composition II
- American Literature I and II (2000-level)
- American Business Culture and the American Novel (2000-level)
- Editing and Publishing
- Literary Criticism
Teaching Experience
- 2010-present, Shorter University
- 2010-2012, Georgia State University
- 2006-2009, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College
- 2005-2013, Mitchell Community College
- 2005-2009, Central Piedmont Community College
Other Academic Experience
- Submissions editor for Aletheia journal
- Reviewer for Queen City Writers journal
- Editorial board member for Intraspection journal
- Editorial board member for Demeter Press
Areas of Specialization
- Southern American Literature
- 20th and 21st-Century Literature
- War Literature
- Psychoanalytic, Feminist, and Ecological Theory
- Theory of the Body
- Motherhood in Literature
Publications
- “From the Appalachians to the Gulf Coast: Environmental Degradation in the Works of Ron Rash and Natasha Trethewey,” Revenant Journal, 2021 (Journal article)
- “Eschew[ing] the Polaroid Instant”: The Depiction of Women Workers in Natasha Trethewey’s Domestic Work and Bellocq’s Ophelia, Marginalized Women, 2021 (Book chapter)
- “’A Walking Personification of the Negative’: African-American World War I Veterans in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Toni Morrison’s Sula,” Transatlantic Shell Shock, 2019 (Book chapter)
- “Review: Devil’s Advocates: The Shining,” Pennywise Dreadful, 2017 (Review in a journal)
- “’Not a Maternal Drudge…Nor…An Acid-Tongued Shrew’: The Complexity of Ruth and Pilate in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon,” Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Novels, Demeter Press, 2017 (Book chapter)
- “Review: War Gothic in Literature and Culture,” Studies in Gothic Fiction, 2017 (Review in a journal)
- “North and South: Photographic Mediation in the work of Seamus Heaney and Natasha Trethewey,” Irish Studies South, 2017 (co-authored with Amanda Sperry; journal article)
- “Dirt and Desire’s ‘Throwaway Bodies’ in the Poetry of Natasha Trethewey,” Southern Literary Journal, 2016 (Journal article)
- “The Monster and Culture Essay,” Pupil, 2015 (Journal article)
- “The Tangible Traumatic Kernel in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place,” The New Union, 2014 (Journal article)
- “’The Body Can Be Made to Pay’: Wartime and Postwar Corporeal Responsibility in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five,” The Quint 4, 2014 (Journal article)
- “The Presence of All Bodies and Nobodies in Jean Toomer’s Cane,” Textual Overtures 1, 2014 (Journal article)
- “Enslaved by Mother and Lover: Florens’ Impossible Search for Self-Love in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy,” New Academia 2, 2014 (Journal article)
Awards
- AS Program Professor of the Year, Shorter University, 2015
- Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year, Georgia State University, 2012
Conference Presentations
- South Atlantic Modern Language Association, virtual, “You Carry [the] Corpse on Your Back”: Natasha Trethewey’s Southern Gothic Aesthetic,” 2020
- Midwest Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, “More Than Belles or Ladies: Mothers in Gone with the Wind,” 2019
- South Central Modern Language Association, Little Rock, AR, “’Here within this Parody of a Parody’: Community, Deviance, and the Supernatural in the Work of Randall Kenan,” 2019
- South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Birmingham, AL, “’Here within this Parody of a Parody’: Community, Deviance, and the Supernatural in the Work of Randall Kenan,” 2018
- Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Cheyenne, WY, “Mothers and Mother Figures in Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples,” 2018
- Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Austin, TX, “Mothers and Mother Figures in Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples,” 2018
- American Literature Association, Boston, MA, “’But in Dreams You Live’: The Power and Complexity of the Mother in Natasha Trethewey’s Poetry,” 2017
- Northeastern Modern Language Association, Baltimore, MD, “Sensory Acuteness and Senselessness in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories,” 2017
- Southern American Studies Association, Williamsburg, VA, “Natasha Trethewey’s Ekphrastic Poetry: Mapping the Past and Future South,” 2017
- Pacific Modern Language Association, Pasadena, CA, “Recovering History in Natasha Trethewey’s Ekphrastic Poetry,” 2016
- Southern Studies Conference, Montgomery, AL, “Dirt and Desire’s ‘Throwaway Bodies’ in the Poetry of Natasha Trethewey,” 2016
- Southern Humanities Council, Louisville, KY, “Dirt and Desire’s ‘Throwaway Bodies’ in the Poetry of Natasha Trethewey,” 2016
- Association of Carolina Emerging Scholars, Columbia, SC, “Policing the Consuming Body in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help,” 2015
- Southern Humanities Council, Athens, GA, “Recovering History in ‘A Walk down Mammary Lane’: Corporeal Fragmentation in Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive,” 2015
- National Endowment for the Arts, Atlanta, GA, “Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson before Dying: ‘Spreading the Roots Deep, Wide, and Firm,’” 2013
- Southern Humanities Council, Savannah, GA, “’But Let Flesh Touch with Flesh’: The Permeable Boundaries of Body and Self between Thomas Sutpen and Wash Jones in Absalom, Absalom!,” 2013
- West Georgia Humanities Conference, Carrollton, GA, “’The Body Can Be Made to Pay’”: Wartime and Postwar Corporeal Responsibility in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five,” 2012
- South Central Modern Language Association, San Antonio, TX, “’But Let Flesh Touch with Flesh’: The Permeable Boundaries of Body and Self between Thomas Sutpen and Wash Jones in Absalom, Absalom!,” 2012
- Pacific Modern Language Association, Seattle, WA, “Enslaved by Mother and Lover: Florens’ Impossible Search for Self-Love in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy,” 2012
- Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Boulder, CO, “The Tangible Traumatic Kernel in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place,” 2012
- Ole Miss Southern Writers/Southern Writing Conference, Oxford, MS, “The Presence of ‘All Bodies’ and ‘Nobodies’ in Jean Toomer’s Cane,” 2012
- University of Virginia GESA Conference, Charlottesville, VA, “Crime Makes it ‘Real’: The Tangible Traumatic Kernel in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place,” 2012
- American Literature Association: Crime Fiction Conference, Savannah, GA, “Crime Makes it ‘Real’: The Tangible Traumatic Kernel in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place,” 2011
- South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, GA, “Hilly’s Corporeal Discomfort in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help,” 2010
- UNC-Charlotte EGSA Conference, Charlotte, NC, “The Solace of Fundamentalism in Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road,” 2004