Education

Ph.D.   Department of English, Fordham University, 2005
     Dissertation: “W.B. Yeats: The Life Esoteric” 
     Defended: April 18, 2005
     Mentor: Gale Swiontkowski
     Readers: Yvette Christiansë, Elisabeth Frost

I argue that Yeats's participation in the Theosophical Society has a direct influence in defining his occult literary nationalism.  Yeats employs the Theosophical Society’s pop-culture occultism to support his own work as poet, dramatist, and editor.  By using theosophy’s methods of investigation and calls to authority, Yeats incorporates his own system of thought into a larger imagined community, suggesting that his work is at once ancient and entirely new and modern. 

Routledge Press solicited this dissertation and has offered to publish the project as part of their Studies in Major Literary Authors Series.

M.A.       Department of English, Fordham University, 1997

B.A.        English/Communications, North Adams State College,1992

Awards and Fellowships

Post Doctoral Fellowship, Fordham University, 2005-6
Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, Fordham University, 2002-3/2003-4     
Graduate Research Grant, Fordham University, 2002-3
Graduate Assistantship, Fordham University, Summer 2000, Spring 1998
Teaching Fellowship, Fordham University, 1997-2004 
Tuition Scholarship, Fordham University, 1997-2004

Employment

Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Fordham University, 2005-2006
Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, Fordham University, 2002-2003 / 2004-2005
Teaching Associate, Fordham University, 2003-2004
Teaching Fellow, Fordham University, 1997-2002
Adjunct Professor, The College of Mount St. Vincent, 1998, 2000
Adjunct Instructor,  Essex County College, 1996-1997

Courses Taught
Composition/Rhetoric (1996-2006)
     -- A writing intensive course open to first-year students.
Composition/Rhetoric (Higher Education Opportunity Program) (1997-1999)
     -- A special section open to disadvantaged students enrolled in 
     the Higher Education Opportunity (H.E.O.P.) Program
Basic Writing Workshop (2000)
     -- A writing intensive survey course offered at the College of Mount St. Vincent 
     as a precoursor to Composition/Rhetoric.
Close Reading/Critical Writing (1999-2006)
     -- A Fordham University core course that compliments Composition. 
     Rather than offering the course as a survey of genres, I focus the class around 
     the creative application of rhetorical strategies in order to develop effective     
     arguments based on the writer’s own close reading. 
Literature and Society (2002)
     --  Open to second-year students at Fordham University, Literature and Society 
     focuses the students’ critical reasoning skills through an exploration of the linkages 
     between a culture and its literature.
Poetry and Poetics (2002 and 2005)
     -- Another second-year option.  Students examine and develop arguments 
     illustrating the various ways poets and poems become important.
Yeats and Joyce Among Others (2005)
     -- An upper level elective, this course interigates the cannonization process of late 
     ninteenth-century and twentieth-century Irish writers.  The class pairs figures such 
     as Yeats, Shaw, and Joyce with both their contemporaries and successors.

Professional Development and Service

International Yeats Summer School.  Participated in poetry writing workshops, attended lectures, assisted Summer School Staff.Summer 1997-2005.

Editorial Assistant.  Women Poets and the Innovative Necessity: Works and Interviews.  Eds. Elisabeth Frost and Cynthia Hogue.  Forthcoming 2006:University of Iowa Press.  6/2003 --10/2004

Participant.  Columbia University Irish Studies Seminar.  A monthly discussion group where invited guests present new work in Irish studies. 2002--present

Moderator.  “Literary Boundaries: Anomaly and Convergence in Print Culture.”  Fordham English Seminar.   November, 2004.

Committee member.  Undergraduate English Major Revision Committee.  Fordham University, Fall semester, 2003.  Committee revised  Undergraduate English major. 

Rappporteur.  “Rebuilding Societies Emerging from Conflict: A Shared Responcibility.”  55th Annual DPI/NGO Conference.  United Nations, New York.  September 9-11, 2002. Recorded and participated in midday workshops for the duration of the conference.  Recorded proceeedings are collected as part of Final Report: Rebuilding Societies Emerging from Conflict.  New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 2002.

Hiring search committee member -- Poet in Residence.  Department of English, Fordham University.  October -- December 2002.

Conference Organizer/Chair.  “Metaphysics of the Image: The Alternate, the Transcendent, and the Virtual in Literature.”  Fordham University, October, 2001. Oversaw the formation of panels and the acceptance of conference papers, arranged for a keynote speaker as well as a following reception.  Organized and moderated a final session addressing the events of September 11.

“Learning Irish.”  A course of study which not only fulfilled the Ph.D. language requirement but also provided the skill to translate and discuss Irish poetry written in a Gaelic idiom.  Spring 2001.