Pronouns: she, her, hers
American Literature & Culture Children's & YA Literature Popular Culture Rape Culture Feminist Theory
Education
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University
PhD, Queen's University
MA, University of Saskatchewan
Major Awards
Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chair, Vanderbilt University
Teagle Foundation Grant
SSHRC Insight Development Grants
Augustana Teaching Leadership Award
McCalla University Professorship
Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund Project Grant
SSHRC Standard Research Grant
I teach and research American literature and culture. Though my original field of specialization was American literature to 1865, my work on American women writers from the colonial, revolutionary, ante- and post-bellum periods has led me to work on a disparate variety of American texts and cultural moments. My interest in children's and young adult literature has been grounded by my earlier career as a children's librarian. I have worked on and taught Indigenous texts and contexts for nearly twenty years, and now blend those interests in a project on Indigenous children's books. My theoretical approaches combine new historicism and feminist cultural materialism as I uncover how the texts I study work to reform the society that produced them. My current projects include a examination of date/acquaintance rape narratives written for young adults, a study of the strategies of decolonization in contemporary Indigenous texts for children, and an ongoing project on singer-songwriters working in the Americana genre. Alongside my disciplinary research, I also engage in the scholarship of teaching, and have published on my classroom practices.
Forthcoming Publications
Recent Publications
Books
Articles
Senior Courses
AUENG 205: “Children’s Literature.”
AUENG 298: America's Poets
AUENG 270: “America, Exceptionalism and Empire.”
AUENG 271: “America, Law, Literature, and Justice.”
AUENG 302: “Feminist Theologies and Women’s Writing.”
AUENG 306: “Indigenous Children’s Literature and Theory.”
AUENG 368: “Women’s Environmental Literature.”
AUENG 392: “Feminist Critical Theory and Women’s Writing.”
AUENG 441: “Reform Writing for Children.”
Recent Directed Readings
Sarah Preston: Feminism and Religious Doctrine in Women’s Writing
Crystal Labrecque: Slut Shaming in Young Adult Fiction (Winner, Augustana Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award)
Kelly Keus: Portrayals of PTSD in Adolescent Fantasy Fiction (Winner, Augustana Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award)
Kate Gael: “They were just women”: Semiotic Collapse in Paradise
Stephanie Gruhlke: Finding Liberation within Religion: The Role of Kinship and Love in the Lives of Faithful Women
Hope Menary-Dianocky: Home as the Seat of Identity and Belonging in Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House Series
Jessica Stambaugh: Gaining Control: Self Harm to Combat Social Harm in YA Fiction
Kristie McLaughlin: War, Women, and the Hunger Games Trilogy
Graduate Supervision
I regularly supervise or serve on the examining committees of graduate students at the University of Alberta and other institutions.
Offers a critical study of literature written for or appropriated by children. The course considers the historical development of children's literature and examines prevailing and changing attitudes toward children. It addresses major themes and issues in children's literature, and studies significant texts representative of important genres and trends in the field. Critical analysis of the literature will be stressed. Prerequisites: AUENG 102.
Winter Term 2023Students in this course will study a diverse body of literature for children and young adults written by North American First Nations authors. The work of leading Native theorists will be included so that analysis of these picture books and novels for young people will be informed by and rooted in Indigenous ways of understanding the world. In crafting a method of reading that is grounded in the traditions and concerns of North American First Nations people, students will attend to the ways in which these texts present the oral tradition, locate themselves in specific tribal territories and cultural practices, connect their narratives to the environment, and re-present Indigenous histories. Prerequisites: *3 in English at the 100-level.
Fall Term 2022Intensive study of a specific area of English as defined by the student and a supervising instructor. Prerequisites: AUENG 401 and consent of the instructor. Note: An Application for Individual Study must be completed and approved before registration in the course.
Fall Term 2022The Community Partnership Project is a project-based course in the Augustana Core. With the support of a faculty advisor, students will work in small multidisciplinary groups on a specific issue raised by a community partner. This course introduces students to the skills and knowledge they need to work professionally with community partners, while reinforcing their ability to work collaboratively on a project. Prerequisite: AUIDS 201.
Winter Term 2023