My teaching and research interests are rooted in my educational and professional backgrounds in literature and medicine. My undergraduate degree is a Bachelors of Science in Nursing, which I received from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Over the course of the thirteen years I was a practicing R.N., I worked in the pediatric neurosurgery unit at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, for the Chair of Neurology at Northwestern University, and finally in the Outpatient Surgery Unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. When I started the Ph.D. program in English at Northwestern University, I thought I was leaving nursing and medicine behind. But when formulating my dissertation topic, I discovered that my past education and experience in medicine informed my research and writing about nineteenth-century American literature. My dissertation, "Reading and Writing Bodily Violence in Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing” began a pattern of combining my interests in the body and medicine with my study of literature. In my current research I examine the ways in which women’s bodies were represented, discussed, and understood in nineteenth-century medical texts, medical journals, and popular literature. My teaching reflects this historical emphasis as well as my interest in contemporary gender issues, women’s literature, women’s health, and women in science.
ARTICLES
"Physiologically Speaking: Emily Dickinson and the Anatomy of Subjectivity," submitted to Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature.
"Genderless Anatomies: The Body in Nineteenth-Century Anatomy and Physiology Texts," submitted to Bulletin of the History of Medicine.
"The Body as Evidence: Resistance, Collaboration, and Appropriation in The History of Mary Prince," Callaloo, Summer, 2001.
"Intimate Reflections: Body, Voice, and Identity in Stoddard’s Morgesons,"ESQ, 47:3, 2001.
BOOK REVIEWS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
"The Changing Landscape for Women in America," in The Repertory Theater Program for The Heidi Chronicles." February, 2007.
"Timeline of Women’s Health," Inside Out Loud: Visualizing Women's Health in Contemporary Art Catalog, St Louis: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, 2004.
Review of Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now, by Martin Kemp and Marina Wallace. Journal of Medical Humanities, Spring, 2004.
Review of Women and Health in America: Historical Readings, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt. Medical History, January, 2002.
COURSES TAUGHT
- Introduction to Women & Gender Studies
- Before Thelma and Louise: American Women Adventure Stories
- Scribbling Women: Nineteenth-Century American Women Authors
- Women’s Health Care in America
- Contemporary Women’s Health
- FOCUS: History of Women in Science: (co-taught with Gina Frey)
- FOCUS: Women in Science: Contemporary Issues (co-taught with Gina Frey)
ACADEMIC HONORS AND AWARDS
2005
Art Sci Council Teaching Award, Washington University
2002-2003
Francis A. Countway Library Fellowship, Harvard University
2001-2001
Wood Institute Fellowship, College of Physicians of Philadelphia
2001
Art Sci Council Teaching Award, Washington University
1998-2000
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, American Culture Studies, Washington University
1997-1998
Alumnae Fellowship, Northwestern University
1998
Teacher-Mentor Award, English Department, Northwestern University
1997
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University
CONTACT
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Campus Box 1078
McMillan Hall, Room 210
Washington University
St. Louis, MO 63130
(314) 935-5102 - office
(314) 935-8678 - fax
Email
