Graduate Students
MA Students

Isabelle Alexander
Teaching Assistant
Political rhetoric, Cultural rhetoric, Civic education & institutions, Archival research

Micaela Anderson
Teaching Associate
19th century British literature, British Romanticism, Poetics


Anna Grace Barnett
Teaching Associate
18th century British Literature, History of the Novel, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Digital Humanities

Macynn Black
Contemporary Literature, Mythology, Medieval Literature, Gender and Sexuality

Noah Blacker
British Medievalism (Middle English), British and German Romanticism, German Idealism, British and French Modernism, Phenomenology, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, International Postmodern and Contemporary Texts, Maximalism, Trauma / Affect Theory, Narrative Theory, Loneliness, Spirituality, Magical Realism / Surrealism, Poetics



Madison Fuentes
Teaching Assistant
Psychoanalysis, Affect Theory, Cognitive Science, Systems Theory & Cybernetics, Medical Humanities, Coming-of-Age, Identity Formation, Romanticism, Contemporary Literature

Miracle Gardner
Teaching Assistant
Cultural Rhetorics, Native American/Indigenous Studies, Storytelling, Identity, Gender Studies, Ethics, Intercultural Communication, ESL Teaching


Nico Houser
Teaching Assistant
Medieval Literature, Masculinity, Trans/Queer Theory, Trauma Studies, Arthurian Literature, Folklore and Legends, Old French, Old English

Elijah Kibler
Teaching Associate
Film, Adaptation, Renaissance Literature, Japanese Literature, Art, and Culture, Psychoanalysis

Elliott Lay
Teaching Associate
Place Theory/Geocriticism, Appalachian Literature and Culture, American Religious Culture


Talia Marshall
Teaching Assistant
Queer literature, temporality, the novel, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, disability studies

Parker McCoig
Teaching Assistant
Modern and Contemporary Poetry; Translation Theory; Quantum Chemistry; Probability


Abigail Murrill
Teaching Assistant
20th Century British Literature, Modernism, Women Writers, Gender and Sexuality

McKayla Okoniewski
Teaching Assistant
Indigenous rhetorics, activist rhetorics, rhetorics of social media

Abigail Page
Teaching Assistant
Medieval literature (British and French), trans/queer theory, gender studies



Madina Sanatbekova
Teaching Associate
Subfields of Linguistics (Cognitive Linguistics; Neurolinguistics; etc.), L2 teaching (English), Multilingualism


Abby Wargo
Teaching Associate
Modernism, women’s literature, gender studies, trauma studies


Jessica Wright
Teaching Associate
Medieval Literature, Renaissance literature, history of the book/print

MFA Students

Kaylee Arndt
Teaching Assistant
Victorian Literature, Medieval Literature, Romantic Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Rural Literature

Michael Emmanuel
Teaching Assistant
African American Literature, Migration, Immigration, Memory, Identity, Christianity, Poetry and the Community

Veronica Fletcher
Teaching Assistant
Feminist Theory, Gender Studies, Southern Studies, Folklore, Postmodern Literature, Persona Poetry

Jasmine Flowers
Teaching Associate
African American literature, Southern literature, Mixed media poetry, Prose poetry, Surrealism, Dadaism, Modernism, The Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts Movement, African American Vernacular English, Spirituality and the occult, Folklore and mythology, Christianity, African Diaspora Religions



Iris Loehr
Teaching Associate
Place Studies, Appalachia, the Uncanny, the Gothic, Vampires, Philosophy, Women’s Literature, Romanticism

Maryam Malik
Teaching Associate
Displacement and Diaspora Poetics; Mother-Daughter Narratives; Memory, Identity & Place; Writing-Center Practices; Fragmentation & Phenomenology of Absence; Solitude, Grief, & the Poetics of Silence; Digital Humanities in Contemporary Poetry; Philosophy; 20th-Century Literary Movements; Modern and Contemporary Art Movements; Critical Approaches to Literature

Alexandra Persad
Teaching Assistant
Female Identity, Emotional Detachment, Girlhood, Contemporary Literature, Romanticism

Cora Schipa
Teaching Assistant
Contemporary poetry and fiction, memoir, gender and sexuality, body studies, Reproductive Justice, feminism, girlhood, generational trauma, the American South, memory, violence, nature
PhD Students

Arinze Akpa
Teaching Associate
African and African Diaspora Studies, Hip-Hop, Mythology, Afro-Pessimism, Postcolonial, Gender, and Black Queer Studies.






Chris Christiansen
Early American Literature/19th Century American Literature, Religion and Literature, Herman Melville

Sara Creel
Renaissance; Early Modern Drama; Shakespeare; Film; Adaptation; Auteurism; Feminism and Film; Race and Gender in Film; American Cinema; World Cinema; New Media; Fandom; Fanfiction; Fanart; TTRPG Actual Plays as Performance


Taylor DeMichael
Teaching Associate
Medieval/Early Modern; Theology, Spirituality, Demonology, Shakespeare, Drama, Digital Humanities


Joseph Gaines
Teaching Associate
19th C. American Literature, Conversion Narratives, History of Biblical Interpretation, Secularism and Unbelief

Catherine Garbinsky
Teaching Associate
Creative writing, poetry, traditional and experimental forms, disability poetics, queer poetics, queer and feminist literature

Greta Gessert
Teaching Associate
Writing center theory, writing center pedagogy, and writing/composition pedagogy

Greg Gillespie
Teaching Associate
Multimodal composition pedagogy, L2 writing, technical and professional communication, applied linguistics, writing centers


Sandra Dolores Gomez-Amador
Teaching Associate
Latin American Literature, Contemporary Literature, Body Studies, Girlhood Studies, Violence Studies, Feminist Theory, Latino Studies.

Taylor Hubbard
Teaching Associate
Feminist theory, Monster theory, Medieval literature, Arthurian literature, Epic poetry, Medical humanities

Nurul Islam
Teaching Associate
Composition theory and pedagogy, first-year composition, writing assessment, writing center and program administration, L2 writing, multilingualism, the role of rhetoric in academic and public discourse.


Elizaveta Komkova
Teaching Associate
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), L2 Writing Pedagogy, L2 Composition and Rhetoric, Language and Linguistics, Multiculturalism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion


Kristen LeFevers
Teaching Associate
Appalachian Studies, Appalachian Literature, Rhetoric and Composition, Linguistic Justice, Counternarrative, Critical Regionalism, Critical Pedagogy, Public Scholarship, Ethnography, Cultural Rhetorics

Chris Mayer
Teaching Associate
Social dimensions of teacher development, Gen AI pedagogies, Technical communication, Qualitative research methodologies, Sustainability/anti-consumerism




Patrick Nome
Teaching Associate
Poetry and poetics, Postcolonial and Anglophone world literature, Postcolonialism, Historical trauma and memory, Migration, assimilation and identity

Ucheoma Onwutuebe
Teaching Associate
Feminism, Ethnic and Migration Studies

Zuleyha Ozturk
Teaching Associate
Poetry, Translation studies, Film, Feminist theory

Amanda Platz
Teaching Associate
Ecocriticism, Environmental Humanities, medieval religion, mysticism and visionary writings, magic and the supernatural, folklore and mythology, adaptations and retellings.

Morgan Shaffer
20th-21st Century American literature, The Gothic/American Gothic, Liminality, particularly liminal beings, American literature written by marginalized/minority authors, specifically through an intersectional lens (women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+)




April Trepagnier
Teaching Associate
20th- and 21st-century American literature, Influence of canonical traditions on contemporary literature, Narrative ethics and moral philosophy, Theological aesthetics and poetics, Cultural memory and sacred narrative, Cormac McCarthy studies


Maggie Warren
Teaching Associate
Contemporary poetry, experimental forms, feminist theory, elegy, American literature



William Younts
Teaching Associate
Nineteenth Century American Literature, Trans Studies, Print Culture, Literary Theory, Music, Film, Labor