I’m a PhD candidate in the Department of English. Before coming to Chicago, I did MA and BA degrees at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, focused mainly in cultural studies and critical theory. I also ran a municipal political office for a few years. In addition to teaching in the English department, I’ve taught at a polytechnic college, an art school, and a community center, and tutored in university writing centers. I also work as a Teaching Consultant with the Chicago Center for Teaching. My dissertation conducts a genealogy of the spectrum as a form of differentiation in American culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. The case studies explore emergent representations of continuous or gradated identity categories across aesthetic and social-scientific texts, examining flashpoints in modes of classifying sexuality, race, gender, and ability.
Lately, I’ve been trying to learn piano and improve my spoken French. I like to jog by the lake and show pictures of my cat. I’m still searching for the best Chicago pizza.