Selected Scholarship
My past academic work informs my writing today. A spirit of inquiry matched with a passion for learning unknown facts about American histories, cultures, and identities drives me as a researcher and writer.
In this critical anthology on American Women’s Literature published by Palgrave Macmillan, I contributed an essay titled “Changing Is Surviving: Transformation as Resistance in the Ojibwe Stories of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft.” Schoolcraft has long remained in the shadows of American literary history despite her status as the first (known) Native American woman author to publish poems and stories, which she did in both Ojibwemowin and English. Situating her work within Ojibwe aesthetic traditions, my article explains why Schoolcraft’s stories have been so important for the cultural survival of her people.
I wrote this guide for professors and students of American literature as part of a larger reference series published by Gale, a global provider of research and learning resources managed by the education tech giant Cengage. My guide explains who the author Lydia Maria Child was, what she wrote, and why she is so relevant to the social and political issues we face in America today.
I was the Guest Editor and Contributor for a Special Forum in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers. In this forum, leading scholars consider the following questions: How does Child imagine new models of American citizenship? In advocating for social justice, does she use existing cultural paradigms or push for alternative ways of thinking? In what ways do her approaches towards history and her own contemporary moment connect to the American experience today? In reflecting upon these matters, contributors cover an array of current topics—race relations, immigration, incarceration, religious tolerance, environmental rights, women’s equality, and new adaptations of abolition philosophies and politics.
As the Associate Editor of this academic journal published by Penn State University Press, I restored a lapsed publication schedule and increased institutional subscriptions by 15% within one year. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research is the leading publication for scholarship on British and European drama and staging during the 17th and 18th centuries. Issues contain articles, theatre reviews, book reviews, and interviews.
