The University of St. Thomas

College of Arts & Sciences | Department of English

Alexis Easley

Alexis Easley

Alexis Easley

Associate Professor of English

maeasley@stthomas.edu
Phone: (651) 962-5653

Office Location: JRC 311
Office Hours: (Spring) T/R 11:00-11:30am; also by appointment

Courses taught in Spring 2013
ENGL 201-05
21781		 Horror & Romance: Gothic Novel 1330-1510 T R OEC 452

4 Credit Hours

Vampires, ghosts, murders, madness, living portraits, dungeons, secret passageways, forbidden romance, and hysteria! The sensationalism of the Gothic novel has made it one of the most popular--and controversial--genres in literary history. This course will trace the development and transformation of Gothic fiction from the founding of the genre to the present day. Following current scholarship, we will pose questions about belief in the supernatural, representations of violence, the significance of fantasy and fear, and the role of gender, race, and class in the literature of terror. Novels will be supplemented with a selection of cultural materials, including film and the visual arts. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. Prerequisite: ENGL 121.
ENGL 380-01
20142		 Issues in English Studies 1525-1700 T R OEC 452

4 Credit Hours

This course focuses on ideas and practices central to advanced work in the field of language and literature. In addition to refining students' facility with critical concepts and scholarly methodology, this course will explore a number of key questions for current work in the discipline: How do we define such concepts as literacy, literature, and interpretation? How do we understand the relationship between reader, writer, and text? How do such factors as gender, culture, and history affect our understanding of literature and of ourselves as writers and readers? Prerequisites: ENGL 201, 202, 203, or 204; at least two courses in ENGL at or beyond ENGL 211
Courses taught in Fall 2013
ENGL 121-38
41740		 Critical Thinking: Lit/Writing 1330-1510 T R OEC 306

4 Credit Hours

Students will read and write about literary texts critically and closely. The course emphasizes recursive reading and writing processes that encourage students to discover, explain, question and clarify ideas. To this end, students will study a variety of genres as well as terms and concepts helpful to close analysis of those genres. They will practice various forms of writing for specific audiences and purposes. Students will reflect on and develop critical awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 12 pages of formal revised writing.
ENGL 390-31
41914		 Major Lit Fig: Charles Dickens 1525-1700 T R OEC 306

4 Credit Hours

One of the greatest writers in literary history, Charles Dickens has influenced modern culture in immeasurable ways. Dickens was instrumental in shaping our conception of the novel, the city, human sympathy, childhood, and the Christmas holiday. In this course, we will survey a range of Dickens' novels, including GREAT EXPECTATIONS and A TALE OF TWO CITIES. In addition we will explore the work of writers who contributed to Dickens's periodicals (HOUSEHOLD WORDS and ALL THE YEAR ROUND), including Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Harriet Martineau. Students will explore the work of Dickens and his circle using DICKENS JOURNALS ONLINE, an innovative digital archive unveiled in honor of Dickens's 200th birthday in 2012. The semester will culminate with the Guthrie Theater's performance of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. This course satisfies the British Literature distribution requirement for English majors. Prerequisite: ENGL 201, 202, 203, or 204.

Academic History

Ph.D., University of Oregon
B.S., M.F.A., University of Alaska Fairbanks
At St. Thomas since 2005

Expertise/Specialties

Victorian Studies
Gender Studies
Nineteenth-Century Publishing/Media History
History of the Novel
Literary Geography/Architecture
Gothic Literature

Editor

Victorian Periodicals Review (effective Spring 2012)

Selected Publications

Literary Celebrity, Gender, and Victorian Authorship, 1850-1914, University of Delaware Press, 2011.

First-Person Anonymous: Women Writers and Victorian Print Media, 1830-70, Ashgate Publishing, Nineteenth-Century Series, February 2004.

Articles:

“Literary Gossip: Women Writers and Celebrity News at the Fin de Siècle.” Women Writers and the Artifacts of Celebrity in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Ann Hawkins and Maura Ives. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012. 133-49.

“Poet as Headliner: George Eliot and Macmillan's Magazine.” George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies 60-61 (Sept. 2011): 107-25.

“Harriet Martineau: Gender, National Identity, and the Contemporary Historian.” Women’s History Review 20.5 (2011): 765-84.

“Introduction: Special Issue on Victorian Networks,” Victorian Periodicals Review 44.2 (2011): 111-14.

“Rooms of the Past: Victorian Women Writers, Historic Preservation and the Reconstruction of Domestic Space.”  Clio’s Daughters: Victorian Women Making History.  Ed. Lynette Felber.  Delaware UP, 2007.  235-57.

“Victorian Drama.” Year’s Work in English Studies: 2006 86.1 (2008): 64-71.

“RSVP Bibliography: 2003-05.” Victorian Periodicals Review 39.3 (2006): 193-256.

"The Woman of Letters at Home: Harriet Martineau and the Lake District." Victorian Literature and Culture 34.1 (2006): 291-310.

"Dialogues on Gender and Reform: Tait's Edinburgh Magazine." Victorian Periodicals Review 38.3 (2005): 263-79.

"Gender and the Politics of Literary Fame: Christina Rossetti and the Germ."  Critical Survey 13.2 (2001): 61-77.

"Ebenezer Elliott: Working-Class Poetry and the Politics of Gender."  Victorian Poetry 39.2 (2001): 303-318. 

"Harriet Martineau and the Victorian Periodical Press."  Defining Centres: Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities.  Eds. Laurel Brake, William Bell, and David Finkelstein. New York: Macmillan, 2000. 154-64.

Selected Presentations

 “In Our Midst: W. T. Stead, Imperialist Feminism, and the Review of Reviews.” W. T. Stead Centenary Conference, British Library, April 16, 2012.

“Living Dolls: Women at Play in the Strand.” Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, Canterbury Christchurch University, July 23, 2011.

“Approximating the Material Text: Facsimiles of Handwriting in the Strand,” Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, Yale University, September 11, 2010.

“The Art of Theatrical Adaptation: George Henry Lewes’s Wanted: A She-Wolf,” Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference, University of Tampa, March 13, 2010.

“The Celebrity Cause: Octavia Hill, Virtual Landscapes, and the Periodical Press,” Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, University of Roehampton (UK), July 5, 2008.

“Literary Gossip: Women and Celebrity News at the Fin de Siècle.” North American Victorian Studies Association Conference, University of Victoria, October 13, 2007, and the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, Virginia Commonwealth University, September 15, 2007.

“Interdisciplinarity Now: Richard Stein.” Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, University of Missouri, Kansas City, April 21, 2007.

“Yesterday’s Woman, Yesterday’s Man: Representations of the Authorial Body in the British Medical Journal.”  Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, CUNY Graduate Center, September 16, 2006.

"Rooms of the Past: Victorian Women Writers, Historic Preservation and the Reconstruction of Domestic Space." North American Victorian Studies Association, University of Virginia, September 30, 2005.

"The Politics of Domesticity: Periodicals, Tourism, and the Reconstruction of Carlyle's House." Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, George Washington University, September 16, 2005.

"The Virtual City: Literary Tourism and the Construction of 'Dickensland'." Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States, University of Washington, October 20, 2004.

"Literary Tourism, Gender, and the Haunting of Victorian London." Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century British Women Writers Conference, University of Georgia, March 26, 2004.

"Literary Tourism and the Victorian Periodical Press." Research Society for Victorian Periodicals Conference, University of Alberta, September 19, 2003.