Curriculum Vitae

Abbreviated version, updated March, 2026. Complete CV can be provided upon request

EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

  • Full Professor, Department of English, 7/2021 — present, SVSU, Saginaw, MI
  • Associate Professor, Department of English, 7/2016 – 6/2021, SVSU, Saginaw, MI
  • Assistant Professor, Department of English, 8/2011 – 6/2016, SVSU, Saginaw, MI
  • English Instructor, 08/2006 – 5/2011, San Jacinto College, Houston, TX

PUBLICATIONS

  • “Public Resources, Private Interests: The Murky Middle of Library Book Collections.” Article in progress.
  • with Madeline Bruessow. “Darkness of Shade and Sea: Roethke’s ‘In a Dark Time,’ and Tess Gallagher’s Unpublished Poem, ‘You, Sitting in the Dark.’” Article in progress.
  • with Emily Beard-Bohn and Anne Tapp Jaksa. “Bridging Disciplines: The Interdisciplinary Power of Faculty Learning Communities.” Building Sustainable Faculty Learning Communities: Opportunities, Challenges, and Lessons, edited by Ofori-Dankwa, Joseph C., et al. Forthcoming.
  • with Madeline Bruessow. “Beatrice Roethke’s Marginalia: Unseen Narratives about a Pulitzer Poet’s Legacy.” MidAmerica 51 (2024), pp. 55-68.
  • “Remaindering the Difference: The Book Collections of Radical Protest Libraries.” Unpacking the Personal Library: The Public and Private Life of Books, edited by Jason Camlot and J.A. Weingarten. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2022.
  • “Books in Quarantine: Facing our Fears of Shared Books During Times of Contagion.” Material Culture. Fall 2021.
  • Libraries amid Protest: Books, Organizing, and Global Activism. Studies in Print Culture and History of the Book Series. University of Massachusetts Press, 2020.  
  • “Maidan Library: The Emergence of a Protest Library within Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity.” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 52 no. 2, 2017, pp. 314-323. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/673301.
  • “In Carnegie’s Shadow: The Biblioteca Popular as Biopolitical Exception.” Tales and Images of Spatial Justice: New Urban Languages Conference Proceedings, Netherlands, 24 – 26 June 2015. Edited by. Roberto Rocco and Daniele Villa, TU Delft / SPS / Urbanism, 2016, pp. 126-34.
  • “OWS People’s Library and Jorge Luis Borges: Radical Politics, Heterotopic Spaces, and the Practice of Hope.”  CTheory: an international peer-reviewed journal of theory, technology and culture, October 7, 2014: http://ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=733

GRANTS AND AWARDS

  • Braun Fellowship, Saginaw Community Foundation, “Public Literacy, Outsider Libraries, and the Concept of the Remainder,” 2022. $37,500.
  • Community Partners Grant, Michigan Arts and Culture Council, “Saginaw Chapbook Project.” 2021. $13,300.
  • Faculty-Led Undergraduate Research Grant, “Interpretive Planning at Saginaw’s Roethke House Museum.” 2021.
  • Faculty-Led Undergraduate Research Grant, “Archive and Library Cataloging at Saginaw’s Roethke House Museum.” 2021.
  • Faculty Research Grant, “Trash Libraries and Public Literacy,” 2020.
  • Faculty-led Research Grant, with Beth Alford, “Military Student Affairs Living Library ‘Special Collection,’” 2019.
  • Excellence in Online Teaching Award Recipient, SVSU, 2017.
  • Foundation Resource Grant, “SVSU Human Library,” 2016.
  • Faculty Research Grant, “Maidan Protest Library,” 2016.
  • Faculty Research Grant, “Reading Libraries of Resistance: The Heterotopic Spaces of BiblioSol and Tres Peces Tres,” 2015.
  • Special Collections/Facilities Research Grant, “Biblioteca Popular Victor Martinez,” 2014.

INVITED TALKS

  • with Madeline Bruessow and Tess Gallagher. “Poets on Roethke: Tess Gallagher.” Roethke & Virtual Series. Roethke Foundation, Saginaw, MI. August 12, 2025.
  • “Outsider Libraries,” Grolier Club, New York, NY. September 17, 2020.
  • “Protest Libraries,” Sunday Assembly Detroit, MI. September 13, 2020.
  • “Libraries amid Protest Book Talk.” Summer Speaker Series. Roethke House Museum, Saginaw, MI. August 18, 2020.
  • “Library as Democratic Institution.” Roethke House Museum, Saginaw, MI. September 2020.
  • “Outsider Libraries: More Trouble Than They Are Worth?” The Living Library: Beyond Stereotypes. May 14, 2018, California State Polytechnic University. Plenary speaker.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

  • with Madeline Bruessow. “Darkness of Shade and Sea: Roethke’s ‘In a Dark Time,’ and Tess Gallagher’s Unpublished Poem, ‘You, Sitting in the Dark.’” Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature Symposium, May 29, 2025, Kellogg Center, East Lansing, Michigan.
  • “Bans, Challenges, Curation, and Trash: When Private Interests Dictate Public Resources.” Poster. Conference on College Composition and Communication, Baltimore, MD. April 11, 2025.
  • “Roethke’s Enduring Legacy in 21st Century Communities and Classrooms.”  Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature Annual Symposium, Lansing, MI. May 29, 2024.
  • “The Library Collection as Genizah: Trashing Books as an Archival Act.” Rhetoric Society of America, Denver, CO. May 25, 2024.
  • “The Trash Libraries of Amherst, Bogota, and Ankara: Public Literacy, Kairotic Invention, and Emergent Hope.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago, IL. February 16, 2023.
  • with Madeline Bruessow. “Beatrice Roethke’s Marginalia: A Wife’s Annotations on her Pulitzer Prize-Winning Husband’s Biography.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Los Angeles, CA, November, 2022.
  • with Anthony Antonucci, Dan Gates, Hilary Haakenson, and Elizabeth Rich. “MLA Human Library 2020.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Seattle, WA, January 11, 2020.
  • “Spine: The Place of Books in International Social Movements.” International Society for Landscape, Place, and Material Culture, Detroit, MI, October 11, 2019.
  • “Autoethnography in the Online Writing Classroom.” Computers and Writing, Lansing, MI, June 22, 2019.
  • “The Heaviness of Libraries.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Pittsburgh, PA. March, 2019.
  • “Referencing One Another: Documenting Protest Library Book Collections.” Poster. Archival Education and Research Institute, Toronto, ON, July, 2017.
  • “The Library of the Revolution of Dignity.”  Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Pasadena, CA, November, 2016.
  • “Remaindering the Difference: The Physical Book Collections of Radical Protest Libraries.” The Promise of Paradise: Reading, Researching, and Using the Private Library, Concordia University, Montreal Canada, June, 2016.
  • Panel Organizer. “Off the Books, Off the property: The Liminal Spaces of Protest Libraries.” Off the Books: Making, Breaking, Binding, Burning, Leaving, Gathering: 4th Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group, University of Toronto, Canada, October, 2015.
  • “In Carnegie’s Shadow: The Biblioteca Popular as Biopolitical Exception.” 3rd International Conference New Urban Languages, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, June, 2015. 
  • “Reading the Library of Resistance:  Seeking Persistent Variables in Impermanent Spaces.” Cultural Rhetorics Conference, Lansing, MI, October, 2014.
  • “Public Libraries and Code Libraries:  Bridging front-end interfaces with back-end programming concepts to help college composition students.” Writing Across the Peninsula, Marquette, MI, October, 2014.

SERVICE

  • Co-Chair, Roethke Festival Planning Committee, Winter 2026. 
  • Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature Elected Advisory Board, May 2025 – present.
  • Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation Board President, Winter 2022 – present.
  • Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation Board Member, Winter 2020 – 2021.
  • Faculty Coach, National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, Summer 2019 – present.
  • SVSU Institutional Review Board, Fall 2019 – present.
  • SVSU Graduate Committee, Fall 2021 – present.
  • SVSU Coordinator, First Year Writing Program, Fall 2012 – Winter 2016, Fall 2020 – 2023.
  • SVSU Co-Coordinator, Human Library Planning Committee, Fall 2016 – 2019.