Literary and Cultural Studies
Literature teaches us to engage with the past and with others. Whether we are looking at sonnets by Shakespeare, Science Fiction short stories, or novels by Chinua Achebe, Virginia Woolf, or Junot Diaz, we are moving across imaginative boundaries: into the past or into the literary culture of a different society. The study of literature makes us aware of our own distinctiveness, as well as the uniqueness of these other places and times. The study of literature at UNL is varied and cosmopolitan. A UNL literary student might work one semester on Milton or Renaissance London; another on the poetry of contemporary Africa; and then move back to the United States, to read Native American writing or the Harlem Renaissance. Literary study is a bridge into different imaginative realms; it encourages us to read closely and to read deeply, to lose ourselves in a created world, but then to come back to our current realities with fresh eyes.
Undergraduate students with interests in literature have a variety of opportunities to develop their interests in:
- British Literature
- American Literature
- Ethnic Literatures (including African American, Irish, Chicana(o) American, Asian, Native American, and Jewish American)
- World Literatures (including Canadian, African, Caribbean, and European)
- Film History, Theory, and Criticism
- Literary History
- Literary Criticism and Theory
- Literary Genres (such as poetry, drama, fiction, life-writing, and environmental literature)
Literature students may also pursue a Literary and Cultural Studies concentration.
UNL students who graduate with an English major in literature pursue a variety of career and professional work, including
- Graduate and professional school (including law, graduate study in English, and graduate school in education)
- Advertising
- Publishing and editing
- Teaching
The Department of English offers diverse and innovative graduate degree programs in many areas of Literary and Cultural Studies. Graduate students who wish to pursue Literary and Cultural Studies have opportunities to work closely with faculty and design individualized M.A. and Ph.D. programs of study. Graduate Faculty members in Literary and Cultural Studies work on varied scholarly projects, share a commitment to the analysis of literature within larger cultural, social and political contexts, and utilize a wide range of critical methodologies, such as textual recovery, archival work, digital scholarship, and theoretical analyses. We offer graduate degree emphases in the following areas of Literary and Cultural Studies:
- Ethnic Literatures (including African American, U.S. Latina/o and Chicana/o, Native American, African, Afro-Caribbean, and Irish literatures)
- Women’s Literature
- Medieval and Renaissance Literatures
- Nineteenth-Century Literatures (including American literatures and eighteenth-century, Romantic, and Victorian British literatures)
- Twentieth-Century Literatures (including American literatures and British modernism)
- Place-Based Writing (including literatures of the Great Plains and the American West)
Literary & Cultural Studies Faculty
Laura White
John E. Weaver Professor of English and Coordinator of Literature19th- and 20th- century British literature, especially the novel, Narrative theory, Genre theory, History of manners, Anglo-American modernism, Jane Austen, and Interdisciplinary 19th-century studies
Marco Abel
ProfessorFilm Studies, Critical and Literary Theory, and Contemporary American Literature
Stephen Behrendt
George Holmes Distinguished ProfessorBritish Romanticism, Later 18th-century British literature, Women writers of the Romantic period, Literature and the Other Arts, Blake, The Shelley circle, and Creative Writing (poetry)
Stephen Buhler
Aaron Douglas ProfessorThe literary culture of Early Modern England, especially the works of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, as well as literature's connections with philosophy and the performing arts.
Peter J. Capuano
Associate Professor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies ProgramVictorian Literature and Culture, Dickens Studies (Dickens Project Faculty), Science and Literature, History and Theory of the Novel, Body Studies, and Digital Humanities
Joy Castro
Susan J. Rosowski Professor and Director of the Institute for Ethnic StudiesMemoir, Fiction, U.S. Ethnic Literatures, Women's Literatures, and Modernism
Matt Cohen
Associate ProfessorAmerican Studies, the History of the Book, Native American Studies, Early American Literature, Editorial Theory and Practice, and Digital Archives
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Ryan Professor of Film Studies and Coordinator of Film StudiesFilm History, Theory, and Criticism
Kwakiutl Dreher
Associate ProfessorAfrican American Literature (Autobiography and Contemporary Literature to present), Mass marketed popular literature, Film and Visual Culture
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Willa Cather Professor of English and Film StudiesFilm, Film Theory, Cultural Studies, and Race, Class, and Gender Theory
Amanda Gailey
Associate ProfessorDigital humanities, with a specialization in text editing and digital archives; Nineteenth-century American literature, especially Whitman, Dickinson, and late nineteenth-century children's literature; and Editorial theory
Tom Gannon
Associate Professor and Academic Advisor for the Institute for Ethnic StudiesNative American literatures, British Romantic literature, Critical Theory, Ecocriticism & "Animal-Rights" Theory, and Avian and Animal Representation in Literature
Nicole Gray
Research Assistant ProfessorNineteenth-century American literature, Book history and textual studies, Editorial theory and Digital Humanities
Melissa J. Homestead
ProfessorAmerican Literature and the History of the Book from the Early Republic through the early 20th century, with a focus on women’s authorship; the American novel; Catharine Sedgwick; and Willa Cather
Maureen Honey
ProfessorAmerican Women Writers; Harlem Renaissance; Women in World War II; Popular Culture.
Matthew Jockers
Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean for Research and Global EngagementDigital Humanities: text mining / text analysis, Irish and Irish American Literature, 20th Century British Literature, and Literature of the American West
Tom Lynch
Professor and Place Studies LiaisonCross-cultural ecocriticism and place-conscious literary studies, with an emphasis on bioregionalism
Amelia María de la Luz Montes
Associate ProfessorLate Nineteenth and contemporary American Literature; Chicana and Chicano Literature; Latina and Latino Literature; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Literature; Theories of Identity; Creative writing, Fiction and Memoir
Ng'ang'a Muchiri
Assistant Professor
Gabrielle Owen
LecturerChildren’s Literature and Culture, Histories of Adolescence and Childhood, Gender Studies / Queer Theory, and Composition / Pedagogy
Michael Page
Lecturer, Department Course Schedule and Laurus Faculty AdvisorScience Fiction, 19th Century British Literature and Culture, Romantic Poetry, Romantic Fiction, Victorian Fiction, and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Nineteenth-Century
Kenneth M. Price
Co-Director of the Center for Digital Research in Humanities19th- and early 20th- Century American Literature, Walt Whitman, American Periodicals, Textual Scholarship, and Digital Humanities
Stephen Ramsay
Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor of EnglishDigital Humanities, Theory of new media, and Theater History
Guy Reynolds
Professor and Director of the Cather ProjectWilla Cather, Modernism, American Literary history, Digital Humanities, Post-War Fiction, and US and Anglophone Literary Internationalism
Beverley Rilett
Lecturer and Research Assistant ProfessorInterdisciplinary nineteenth-century studies, Victorian and early 20th-century British literature and culture, women’s and gender studies, biography, the novel, digital humanities, and George Eliot’s life and literature.
Kari Ronning
Research Associate ProfessorWilla Cather Archive; co-director of the Willa Cather Journalism project; quilts, textiles and fashion design
Gregory E. Rutledge
Associate ProfessorAfrican American literature and culture, including speculative fiction, literary history, the African American epic aesthetic, and folklore; and American Studies
Julia Schleck
Associate Professor and Graduate ChairRenaissance literature, including drama, lyric poetry and prose; Travel writing and early modern colonial writings; Interdisciplinary interests include Renaissance music and history of science; Genre studies, Cultural Materialism/ Marxism
Kelly Stage
Associate ProfessorEarly Modern Literature, 16-17th centuries, especially drama; Theater History; Theories of Space and Urban Development; Theories of the Public and Private
Roland Végső
Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor of English and Vice ChairCritical and Literary Theory, Psychoanalysis, Contemporary Political Theory, Twentieth Century Literatures, Modernism, Cold War Studies, and Translation and Translation Studies
Jack Vespa
Assistant Professor of PracticeLiterature of Sensibility and Romanticism; the Wordsworth Circle; Restoration and 18th-Century literature; Victorian literature; Modernist literature; 19th- and 20th-Century American literature
Hope Wabuke
Assistant Professor
Adrian S. Wisnicki
Associate Professor and Digital Humanities LiaisonVictorian Studies, African Studies, Digital Humanities, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, World Literature, and Romantic Literature