Lecturer in English and Film Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Women’s Writing and the Global Nineteenth Century (Advanced Topics in Victorian Literature and Culture)
An exploration of gender and empire in the global nineteenth century through the perspectives of British, South Asian, and Caribbean and U.S. women’s writing, including feminist tracts, slave narratives, poems and novels. Sophomore status required.
Nineteenth-Century Novel
A survey of the nineteenth-century novel, from Jane Austen to Oscar Wilde, with an emphasis on questions of gender and authorship, race and imperialism, visuality, and the history of technology. Sophomore status required.
India in the Victorian Imagination (Advanced Topics in Victorian Literature and Culture)
A critical exploration of the British Raj, through the lens of Victorian writing and art about India. We read novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, and Rudyard Kipling, discuss key works of postcolonial theory and colonial history, and look at imperial media like photographs, stereographs, and early film. Sophomore status required.
Visual Storytelling (Topics in Literature and Film)
How do pictures tell stories? How do stories make us see pictures in our minds? We explore these questions by reading comics by Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel, reading the novels of H.G. Wells and Jean Toomer, watching films like Moonlight and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and even playing a video game. Fulfills Humanities requirement.
Global Film History
A dynamic survey of the global history of film, from pre-cinematic optical toys to digital 3D cinema, covering regions like India, Senegal, Mexico, Western Europe, and the Middle East. This is a project-based course: students are assigned a region to research over the course of the semester and are given the chance to share what they have learned by making podcasts, recording DVD commentary, or curating a film festival. Sophomore status required.
Cinematic Realisms
This mixed graduate/upper-level undergraduate course explores the theory and practice of realism in film. We watch films by Chantal Akerman, Satyajit Ray, and Lucretia Martel and discuss works of theory by Bazin, Deren, Cavell, and Lukacs. Sophomore status or Intro to Film pre-requisite required for undergraduates.
Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Chicago
Realism, or Illusions of the Real
What is real about realism? We try to answer this question through readings in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British fiction, including Elizabeth Gaskell, Jane Austen, and Virginia Woolf, as well as photography and early film.
Film and the Moving Image
What makes film an artistic medium? How do you watch films attentively and interpretively, to understand their layered meanings? We practice skills of close looking, analysis of the moving image, and interpretation through screenings that span the history of cinema.
Media Aesthetics II: Text
What is a text? How do texts mean—how do they make meaning happen? What is the relationship between writing and reality, and how can texts act on reality by shaping or unsettling identity, experience, and the world itself? We read Plato, Zora Neal Hurston, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Shakespeare; watch Kurosawa’s Rashomon; and practice writing skills through regular workshops. Part of the required first-year Humanities sequence.
Senior Teaching Fellow, University of Chicago
Fundamentals of Teaching Literature I
Covers the fundamentals of teaching, such as active learning, assessment, and how to facilitate discussion. We apply these skills to brainstorming how to teach the core competencies of the literature curriculum like close reading, analysis, and making an argument.
Fundamentals of Teaching Literature II
A deeper dive into the fundamentals of teaching that explores topics like race in the literature classroom, teaching literary theory, and inclusive classrooms.
Coordinator, Race and Pedagogy Working Group, University of Chicago
Roundtable: Anti-Racist Pedagogy, Here and Now (2017)
Reading Group: Critical Pedagogies (2016)
Workshop: Inclusive Teaching in STEM (2018)