Teaching Experience

I teach classes in British literature, primarily in the nineteenth century.  This is the period when authors such as Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and Joseph Conrad were writing long, intricate novels, and when poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and Toru Dutt were experimenting with radical and inventive verse.  Teaching is my dream job, and I enjoy every opportunity to share this literature with the students in my classes.

In the classroom I combine in-depth close reading of texts with an attention to the theoretical underpinnings and historical contexts that generated those texts.  I design writing assignments that focus on the process of writing, re-writing, and refining one’s prose, and I often incorporate elements of experiential learning into my courses.

Research

My academic and research interests are centered in Victorian literature, with emphases in the fields of social reform fiction, philanthropic studies, book history, short fiction, and gender studies.

Selected Publications

• The Discourse of Philanthropy in the Anglo-American Tradition, 1850-1920. Co-edited with Frank Christianson. Indiana University Press, 2017.
• “Women, Free Trade, and Harriet Martineau’s Dawn Island at the 1845 Anti-corn Law League Bazaar,” Economic Women: Essays on Desire and Dispossession in Nineteenth-Century British Culture, Ed. Lana Dalley and Jill Rappaport. Ohio State University Press, 2013. 41-59.
• “The Victorian Short Fiction Project: A Web-based Undergraduate Research Assignment,” Journal of Victorian Culture 16 (2011): 101-11. Co-authored with Michael Johnson of the Center for Teaching and Learning, BYU. Invited submission.
• “Re-Authorship: Authoring, Editing, and Coauthoring the Transatlantic Publications of Charlotte M. Yonge’s Aunt Charlotte’s Stories of Bible History.” Book History 13 (2010): 80-103.
• “The Charity Pig: Altruism and Self-Deceit in Charlotte M. Yonge’s The Stokesley Secret: or, How the Pig Paid the Rent.” Women’s Writing 17 (2010): 268-88.

Service

I currently serve as associate dean in the College of Humanities, working primarily with undergraduate and graduate curriculum and assessment.

I am also co-organizing, with Jessica Straley of the University of Utah, the 2022 Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Studies Conference, to be held in Salt Lake City.  

Citizenship assignments

Current:

• Associate Dean, College of Humanities
• Committee Chair, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals
• Co-organizer, INCS 2022 Conference

Selected Past:

• Search and Hiring Committees: Department, College, University
• Associate Chair, Department of English
• Course Coordinator
• Faculty Advisor

Professional Website

Victorian Short Fiction Project: https://vsfp.byu.edu/
Victorian Christmas Exhibit: http://victorianchristmas.byu.edu/