My specialization focuses on the late-eighteenth and nineteenth century U.S. and draws upon a variety of disciplinary investments: literary aesthetics; critical theory; democracy; and material history (esp. book and print culture history). I have two current projects nearing completion: a monograph titled “American Literary Misfits: Vernacular Aesthetics and Alternative Democracies, 1830-1860,” which is currently under review; and an edited volume (with Gregory Laski) titled Democracies in America: Keywords for 19th Century and Today, which is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. My essays and reviews have appeared in Nineteenth-Century Literature, American Literature, ESQ, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. As a teacher, I strive to design mindful learning experiences and foster a dynamic environment promoting the open exchange of ideas. As Director of the Honors Program, I love working with students to develop lofty goals and to build the foundation at this stage to pursue them.
My research focuses on human rights measurement, political violence, marginalization and oppression. I most commonly work in the space of two overarching questions: “Why do states target their citizens with violence?” and “How do societal structures of privilege and power lead to non-enjoyment of human rights?”. These questions have launched projects across a number of subfields like political violence, political economy, and measurement. My dissertation is one example, identifying victims of human rights abuse to understand how – and why – states target certain people for abuse. This manifests in other projects, examining widespread or targeted human rights abuse in contexts of nationalism, personalism, civil unrest, and migration.
Program Coordinator: Jen Garmon
Kaitlyn Hawker
Blog Editor-in-Chief
