Personal Summary

My primary areas of research and teaching are British literature of the 17th and 18th centuries; speculative fiction broadly; and the history of literary engagements with astronomy. I regularly teach courses on Milton, Shakespeare, and modern science fiction. My current research projects focus on the history of creative cosmologies from Plato to contemporary science fiction.  

Education

Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington

M.A., University of British Columbia

B.A., Kenyon College (3rd year at the University of St. Andrews, SCOTLAND)

Courses Taught

• Milton (LIT 353) 
• Shakespeare (LIT 327) 
• Science fiction (LIT 370)
• Cosmos and Poiesis (LIT 391)
• Science Fiction: Other Worlds (LIT 370, 522)
• Literature, film, and the problem of evil (LIT 391)
• Philip K. Dick and Ursula K. Le Guin (LIT 370)
• Science Fiction: Alien worlds (LIT 370)
• Enlightenment Frontiers (LIT 246)
• British Literature: Enlightenment to Romantics (LIT 221) 
• Introduction to literature (LIT 110) 
• Milton and the Romantics (LIT 520) 
• History of Literary Criticism and Theory (LIT 421) 

Teaching Experience

Lecturer, University of Montana. August 2021 – present. 

Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Montana.  May 2008 – May 2021.

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Montana. May 2005 – May 2008.

Assistant Professor, University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  August 2004 – May 2005.           

Visiting Lecturer, Indiana University.  Fall 2002 – Spring 2003.

Associate Instructor, Indiana University.  Fall 1997 – Spring 2002.

Groups Program Instructor and Tutor, Indiana University.  Summers 2001 and 2003.

Teaching Assistant, University of British Columbia, CANADA. Fall 1992  –  Spring 1994

Publications

"Dreams of Other Worlds: Paradise Lost and Science Fiction in Literature Courses," Teaching Science Fiction in the Literature Classroom (MLA Pedagogy), ed. Gerry Canavan (forthcoming). 

Book review of Arthur C. Clarke by Gary Westfahl, Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Reearch (2021). 

"Nietzsche among the Aliens in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey," Science Fiction Studies 47.3 (November 2020): 377-397.

"Anna Letitia Barbauld's 'A Summer Evening's Meditation' and the Cosmic Voyage Since Paradise Lost," Journal For Eighteenth-Century Studies 39.3 (September 2016): 395-412. 

"'Immota Triumphans': Paradise Lost and Caroline Corruptions of the Roman Triumph," Milton Studies 51 (2011): 101-135.

“‘To serve my purpose’: Interpretive Agency in George Wither’s A Collection of Emblemes,” in Images of Matter: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance,University of Delaware Press, 2005.

“‘My God, what has sound got to do with music?!’: Interdisciplinarity in Works by T. S. Eliot and Charles Ives," in T. S. Eliot’s Orchestra: Essays,Garland Press, 2000.

International Experience

Foreign Expert, Sichuan Union University, Chengdu, P. R. CHINA.  Fall 1995 – Summer 1996.

Foreign Expert, Guangdong Foreign Studies University, Guangzhou, P. R. CHINA. Fall 1994 – Summer 1995.

Hobbies

Hiking and astronomy