I fell in love with teaching an undergraduate at Oberlin College, where I scored an unbelievable part-time job assisting in the Print Study Room at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. I was invited to help teach some of the college classes that came through the museum, leading discussions on the engravings of William Blake or the photographs of Cindy Sherman. As an English professor, I am always trying to recreate those first experiences supporting students in the process of encountering, and making meaning from, works of art. I teach a wide and eclectic range of materials – not only novels and films, but photography, comics, optical toys, video games – with an emphasis on close analysis, object-based learning, and collaborative problem-solving.
My classroom approach centers close analysis as a method for new kinds of pleasure and a renewed sense of wonder at what words, pictures, and moving images can do. The classroom is a place of pleasure and wonder for me, too: It is a privilege to think and learn with my students.
I have a background in critical pedagogies, with an emphasis on inclusive and anti-racist teaching practices. I have taught workshops on inclusive pedagogy and published on my use of grading contracts. At the University of Chicago, I was the 2018 winner of the Wayne C. Booth Prize for Graduate Teaching Excellence. At University of Wisconsin-Madison, I won a 2021 Instructional Continuity Grant for supporting student learning during the covid-19 pandemic.