When I first entered college a lifetime ago, with no clear plan of study, I knew I was attracted to the stories we tell and the ways we tell them to make meaning from existence. When I was working to answer a question like, “what does it mean to be human,” literature provided me a compelling framework to seek out narrative wisdom. Growing up in New Orleans, with its vibrant storytelling traditions and culture of deliberate living, I found some answers and even more questions through reading and exploring literary works, films, and narrative video games. I followed this path to University of New Orleans, to Prague in the Czech Republic, and then to the Universities of Georgia and Arkansas before winding up at University of the Ozarks in 2017, where I teach courses on writing and literature.
My academic research focuses on how contemporary American novels and films represent new technologies, especially considering the ramifications for identity and the formation of cyborg selves. In what ways, in other words, do technologies change both our cultures and our selves? My research interests come across in my teaching, especially in courses such as Science Fictions and Speculative Futures and Utopian and Dystopian Visions. I am also interested in how the form of prose fiction—especially novels and short stories—enhances and evolves our ability to adapt stories to continue to ask big questions about human life and culture. These formal questions find purchase in courses I teach on contemporary American literature and on British literature from the 18th century to present day.
Outside of class, you can find me in my office fighting back the books to keep them from completely taking over, drinking coffee, pondering the meaning of things, reading science fiction and fantasy novels, and, when possible, playing chess.
Special Projects / Initiatives
My current research involves exploring what contemporary science and speculative fiction novels can add to our understanding of the digital, virtual lives our technologies have thrust upon us. I am currently at work on a series of articles and conference papers that interrogate virtuality and techno-cultural change as they are represented in literature. I am also very interested in how science and speculative fiction works attempt to forecast future humans in relation to humans today.
On campus, I’m a co-organizer of Project Poet, our annual campus-wide poetry competition, and the faculty advisor to Wordsmiths, our creative writing club. I teach writing intensive courses (like Academic Writing), courses for the English major and minor, and courses for the American Studies minor on a yearly basis.