Education
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1993
B.A., Stanford University, 1984
Teaching Interests
The Short Story
Faulkner
Postcolonial Literature
Comparative Literature
Modern Fiction
Popular Culture
Gender/Men's Studies
Committee Assignments & Service to the College
Committee on Men's Studies at Hampden-Sydney College, 2008-present
Chair, 2008-09, 2010-12, 2013-14
Faculty Affairs Committee, 2010-13, Chair, 2012-13
Faculty appointee to the College Strategic Steering Committee, 2010-11
Chair, Dept. of English 2003-2007
Faculty Representative to the Board of Trustees, 2005-2008
Alumni Summer College planning committee, 2000-2007
Faculty Reading Group on Masculinity Studies, fall 2004-present
Most Recent Publications
"The unanchored self in The Hours after Dalloway," Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Fall 2011.
Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal though Politics, Home, and the Body, a collection of essays co-edited with Caroline Wiedmer. Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005
"Introduction: Spaces of Motherhood," co-authored with Caroline Wiedmer, in Motherhood and Space.
"Breeding Ambiguity: the Womb as Alien Space in the X-Files," in Motherhood and Space.
Coordinating Editor and author of Preface for The Slate Hill Series, Volume One: The Authors' Café. Voyage Publishing, 2006.
"Teaching Writing in the Space of Blackboard," article coauthored with Evan Davis, Computers and Composition Online, Spring 2003
"A Paramount Narrative: Exploring Space on the Starship Enterprise," article coauthored with Rebecca Kukla, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, special issue on popular culture, Spring 1999
"The Art of Diagnosis," Narrative, special issue on the short story, Spring 1998
Honors and Awards
NEH Summer Seminar, "James Joyce's Ulysses: Texts and Contexts," Dublin, Summer 2012
Named one of the South's most innovative teachers by Oxford American, September 2011
Crawley Award for Service to the College, Hampden-Sydney College, May 2009
Mettauer Award for Excellence in Research, Hampden-Sydney College, April 2008
Jesse Ball Dupont Summer Seminar, "Space: Familiar, Sacred, Contested, Compulsory," National Humanities Center, Summer 2005
Research Grant for International Collaboration, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, 2004
Cabell Award for Excellence in Teaching, May 2004
Bortz Teaching Award for Technology, September 2003
Fuqua Teaching Award, Hampden-Sydney College, May 1999, May 2003
NEH Summer Seminar: "Literature in Transition," UCLA, summer 1998
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellowship, Spring 1998
Mednick Research Grant, Summer 1997
Professional Affiliations
Modern Language Association
Society for the Study of Narrative
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
American Men's Studies Association