Distinguished Lecturer
2447 Dunford Hall
rbarrow1@utk.edu
Personal Website
Twitter Profile
Biography
Dr. Barrow-Nichols specializes in 19th-century British literature, focusing primarily on the novel and its historical context. She is particularly interested in how fictional codes encourage or restrict readers’ sympathetic identification with characters. Her book project, Narratives of Outrage, examines narrative representations of sexual violence in Victorian fiction, poetry, and periodicals. She also studies Jane Austen and contemporary fantasy fiction by writers like Terry Pratchett.
Dr. Barrow-Nichols regularly teaches composition, Workplace Writing, and Technical Writing. She is overjoyed when assigned to teach the second half of the British Literature survey. She has also taught courses on Victorian representations of women, postcolonial literature, poetry, fiction, women’s literature, literature and sexualities, American autobiography, and an Honors seminar on empathy.
Education
- B.A., Tennessee Tech
- M.A., Ph.D., University of Iowa
Publications
Representative Articles
- “Rape on the Railway: Women, Safety, and Moral Panic in Victorian Newspapers.” Journal of Victorian Culture 20.3 (2015): 341-56.
- “Building Empathy through Community-Based Learning and Tales of Sexual Violence.” Service Learning and Literary Studies in English. Ed. Laurie Grobman and Roberta Rosenberg. Options in Teaching series. New York: MLA, 2015. 213-23.
- Rev. of The Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature: The Danger and the Sexual Threat, by Jennifer Hedgecock. Victorians Institute Journal Digital Annex 38 (2010).
- “Braddon’s Haunting Memories: Rape, Class, and the Victorian Popular Press,” Women’s Writing 13.3 (2006): 348-68.
- “An Identification in Yeats’s A Vision (B),” Notes and Queries, 51.2 n.s. (June 2004): 162-63.
- Contributor, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Bibliography in Victorian Periodicals Review, Winter 2000 to Winter 2008