Teaching Experience

Areas of Interest

British literature 1660-1900, literature surveys medieval to present, introductions to writing and literary studies, romantic poetry, the novel, drama and theatre history, women writers, gender studies, performance studies, electronic literature, digital humanities, instructional technology.

Positions Held

Lecturer, Department of English, UCLA, 2008-09
Teaching Fellow, Department of English, UCLA, 2007
Instructional Technology Consultant, Center for Digital Humanities, UCLA, 2004-05
Teaching Associate, Department of English, UCLA, 2001-02 and 2003-04
Teaching Assistant, Department of English, UCLA, 2000-01

Courses Taught

As Lecturer

The English Novel to 1832 (English 157, UCLA)

This course investigates the novel’s evolution and its relationship to other prose forms, including letters, diaries, memoirs, travelogues, histories, and romances, with special attention to the politics of gender and authorship and the cultural tensions between tradition and originality that produced these “novel” works of literature. Along the way we will encounter examples of many novelistic modes, such as the sentimental novel, the epistolary novel, parody, the gothic novel, and the novel of manners. We will consider how various writers respond to the social and economic circumstances of their particular moment as well as speak to broader concerns of human experience, from romantic love to family relations to the power of the imagination. And we will consider the roles that realism, plot, credibility, domesticity, and characterization play in distinguishing the novel from other genres.
Fall 2008, Winter 2009

Studies in Individual Authors (English 110, UCLA)

"Jane Austen, Then and Now": Jane Austen was virtually unknown as a writer in her lifetime, but nowadays she inspires societies of Janeites and the Hollywood film industry . What led to her incredible popularity? Why do her writings on the lives of early nineteenth-century young women have such widespread appeal? What can we learn from her, about her own historical moment and about our own, besides how to fall in love? This course will begin by reading selections from a few late eighteenth-century writers, including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, and Mary Wollstonecraft, to familiarize ourselves with the social and literary climate that Austen emerges from. Then we will move on to consider Austen's own writings and finally a few late-twentieth- and twenty-first century rearticulations of Austen, such as film adaptations and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary.
Spring 2009

Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature (English 181D, UCLA)

"London's Global Stage": An examination of how British drama of the Restoration and eighteenth century represents the history and customs of other nations. Sometimes these are thinly veiled explorations of British values and identities, while other times they demonstrate a genuine interest in alternative traditions and the consequences of cultural contact. We will read several plays set around the globe, including plays focused on the Orient and the East, Africa and the slave trade, the Americas, and British soil.
Spring 2009

As Instructional Technology Consultant:

Advised and trained TAs and professors on instructional tools; customized course websites, scanned documents, prepared multimedia for web-delivery; researched online services like ArtStor (image database) and Turnitin (plagiarism prevention); authored and maintained websites providing help and resources to students and faculty.

As Instructor:

Designed syllabus, assignments, and course readers; lectured and led discussion twice a week for two hours; designed course websites and moderated online discussion boards; held student conferences; graded quizzes, exams, and papers; assigned course grades.

Composition, Rhetoric, and Language (English 3, UCLA)

“Heroism, Violence, and Culture”: introduction to university-level composition with intensive focus on developing and structuring ideas for argumentative essays. Readings and discussions explored the interrelation between heroic ideals and violence in a variety of cultures, from ancient Greek to modern Native-American and Chinese-American.
Winter 2002, Fall 2003.

Critical Reading and Writing (English 4W, UCLA)

“Reading the Gothic Across Genres, Across Time”: introduction to the study of literature with intensive focus on writing argumentative essays and understanding literary terminology. Coursework explored gothic tropes and themes in poetry, drama, short stories, novels, and film, asking students to probe their own anxieties along with those expressed in literature.
Winter 2004, Summer 2004, Winter 2007.

As Teaching Assistant / Section Leader:

Led two weekly, one-hour discussion sections; contributed essay and exam prompts; moderated online discussion boards; held student conferences; graded quizzes, exams, and papers; assigned course grades.

British Literature to 1660 (English 10A, UCLA)

Part one of a year-long survey course for English majors, covering Old English and writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Milton.
Professor Gordon Kipling (Fall 2001).

British Literature 1660-1832 (English 10B, UCLA)

Part two of a year-long survey course for English majors, covering writers such as Dryden, Behn, Pope, Swift, Wordsworth, the Shelleys, and Austen.
Guest lecture, “Frankenstein as Myth and as Mary Shelley’s Response to Romanticism,” May 2002.
Professor Helen Deutsch (Spring 2002) and Professor Jayne Lewis (Winter 2001).

British Literature 1832 to Present (English 10C, UCLA)

Part three of a year-long survey course for English majors, covering writers such as the Brontës, Tennyson, Browning, Eliot, Woolf, and Ishiguro.
Professor Jonathan Grossman (Spring 2004) and Professor Joseph Bristow (Summer 2003).

Major American Authors (English 80, UCLA)

Survey course for non-majors, covering writers such as Bradstreet, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and Oates.
Dr. Luke Bresky (Spring 2001) and Dr. Emily Schiller (Fall 2000).