My research agenda is highly interdisciplinary, combining material and concepts from rhetorical studies, communication theory, gender and ethnicity studies, literary studies and pedagogical theory and practice.
My roots, however, are in literary studies. In my literary work I study the 'long' nineteenth century, and I apply an anti-humanist feminist theoretical lens to nineteenth century British culture. I'm currently engaged in a project which tracks the influence of idealist Hellenism on the aesthetics of embodiment in nineteenth-century Britain from the 1816 Parliamentary purchase of the 'Elgin' Marbles to Oscar Wilde's 1895 trials for gross indecency. This research engages with the concept of rhetorical Greekness as an ethnogenetic narrative and connects to my other body of research influenced by literary studies, which applies a similar concept of rhetorical Greekness to the American nineteenth century, and asks how (or whether) the symbolism enacted through the Greek Revival architecture of Washington, D.C. and the similar architectural styles of Southern plantation homes are connected to Americanity and a national sense of American identity.
My research also includes work in university studies, and in this work I am interested in applying a feminist, trauma-informed, process-oriented praxis to what is sometimes called the 'corporate' university. In a past project I have identified the need for academic feminists to question the product-orientation of the 'corporate' university and in ongoing research I am asking how trauma-informed educational practice can be applied in the composition classroom, considering the focal role of trauma and of disordered writing affect in many college students’ lives.
I am a former semi-professional musician and early childhood educator, and a current teacher of composition, poetics, literature and rhetoric at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I earned my Ph.D from the University of Texas at Austin in March, 2018.