Biographical Information
Academic
In June 1998, I
graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in
English with honors from Washington and
Lee University. My honors thesis, under the direction of
Heather Ross Miller, explores the sacrificial roles adopted by women in
fiction by Edna O'Brien and Alice Walker. I received
my Master of Arts in English from
the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in August 2000. My
thesis, "Religious
devotion
and desire in the early fiction of James Joyce and Edna O'Brien,"
examines
common themes of faith and desire as well as O'Brien's conscious
dialogues with the writings and life of Joyce.
I am currently
writing my dissertation in the English department at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. My dissertation, under the direction of Weldon Thornton,
examines female characters, namely mothers, in the works of Irish
writers Edna O'Brien, Jennifer Johnston, and Roddy Doyle,
with particular attention to the impact of de Valeran conceptions of
proper womanhood on these writers and their characters. In
addition to my dissertation work, other research interests include
British and Irish literature from the Modernist period to the present,
postcolonial literature, and instructional technology and its
applications in the composition classroom.
At present, I am teaching part-time at Dalton State College in Dalton,
Georgia.
Personal
My husband Doug
and I
live in Dalton with our two children. We have two
dogs: Quinn is a golden
retriever, and Patton is a recently-adopted yellow lab. In
addition to spending time with family and pets, I enjoy baking,
gardening, and reading for pleasure.
