I came to Washington University after completing undergraduate degrees in English and Spanish at Pacific Lutheran University, and after living and teaching abroad in Spain and testing the waters as a social worker in Seattle. When I decided to return to my studies in Literature, I was drawn to the English Department at Washington University because of its emphasis on teaching and its strong ties to the Women and Gender Studies Program.
Being a graduate certificate student in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies has opened up critical and theoretical avenues of inquiry that have tremendously impacted me as a literary scholar. And the teaching opportunities for graduate students in WGS have meant that I have been able to integrate my work in English and Women and Gender Studies in classes which I design and teach.
My dissertation work is interested in the ways that American literature at the turn of the century represents an increasing anxiety over changing gender roles as it is often convoluted with increasingly racist and nationalistic understandings of (white) women’s roles. My work in WGSS has given me a theoretical framework through which I can explore the intersectionality of various disciplines and lines of inquiry as they interconnect with American Literary Studies and has helped me stretch the possibilities for my scholarship within my field. |
