Fall 2017
SARAH MESLE
Writing Program 1751 Lucretia Avenue
University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA 90026
Office
Jefferson Building(773) 203-8164
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Academic Employment
2017-Present, Assistant Professor (Teaching), Writing Program
University of Southern California
2014-2017 Lecturer, Writing Program
University of Southern California
2013-2014 Lecturer, Department of Writing Programs
University of California, Los Angeles
2010-2014 Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of English
University of California, Los Angeles
2009-2010 Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of English
University of Michigan
2008-2009 Lecturer, Department of English
Northwestern University
Editorial Positions
2014-Present Senior Humanities Editor
Los Angeles Review of Books:
2016-Present Co-Editor
Avidly Reads book series editor, NYU PRess
2012-Present Co-Editor
Avidly:
Education
Ph.D., English, Northwestern University, December 2009
M.A., English, Northwestern University, December 2002
B.A., English with Honors and Highest Distinction, University of Iowa, June 2008
Book Manuscript
Sentimental Literature in Proslavery America
Teaching and Research Interests
Writing and Composition; Cultural Criticism and Creative Nonfiction, American Literature and Culture; Women’s and Gender Studies; African American Literature; Theory and History of the Novel
Academic Publications
“Sentimentalism’s Nation: Maria J. McIntosh and the Antebellum Contexts of “Southern” Fiction.” Fall 2013, Studies in American Fiction.
“Dying Art: Form and Loss in Patti Smith’s Just Kids.” Book Review. Michigan Quarterly Review, 49:4 (Fall 2010).
Digital Publications
“The Function of Pettiness at the Present Time,” 4800 words, ASAP/J.
“No One Likes Meg,” 1600 words, Avidly
“Fantasizing Consent,” 2700 words, LARB
“Material Girls” and “Dancing in the Dark,” 1200 words, Talking Points Memo
“Srsly.” 3500 words, LARB.
“Hurt Girls,” 1800 words, LARB
“GoT, Cliven Bundy, and the Fantasy of Freedom,” 1800 words, LARB
“Arya’s American Fantasy,” 3200 Words, LARB
“Watching The Knick — and Ferguson,” 1800 words, LARB
“The Unbearable Awesomeness of Lululemon Pants,” 800 words, Avidly
“Imaginary Idols,” 1600 words, Avidly
“10 Things I Learned from Loving Anne of Green Gables,” 2400 words, LARB
“YA Fiction and the End of Boys,” 1800 words, LARB
“Top 7 Ladies Who Needed a Birth Control Mandate,” 1500 words, Avidly
“On Connie Britton’s Hair,” 900 words, Avidly
Honors and Awards
2007 Kaplan Initiatives Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship
2007-08 Northwestern University Dissertation Year Fellowship
2007-08 Alumnae Fellowship Recognition Award
2006-07 Northwestern Graduate Research Grant
2006-07 Weinberg Dissertation Research Fellowship
2005-06 Department of English Brady Fellow
2004-05 TriQuarterly Fellow
2004-06 Searle Center for Teaching Excellence Teaching Consultant
2003 Searle Center for Teaching Excellence Teaching Fellow
Conference Papers and Invited Talks
Critical Style and the Public Humanities
“Writing Forms.” Seminar Co-leader. C19: The Association of 19th Century Americanists Biennial Conference. March 2018 (Forthcoming).
“Can Writing Change the World?”Colby College Symposium on the State of Writing. March 10, 2017. Invited Speaker
“The Future of Criticism.” Keynote Speaker. Hendrix College Symposium on Critical Voice. February 26 2016. Invited talk.
“Avid Criticism.” American Studies Faculty Seminar, Columbia University, New York, NY. September 2015. Invited Talk.
“Feeling Critical: Emotion and Identity in Academic Prose.” Modern Language Association Conference. Austin, TX. January 2016.
“Why We Write and Where: Academic and Online Writing in the 21st Century.” English Department, Cal-Poly Pomona University, Pomona California. May 2014. Invited Talk.
Teaching and Pedagogy Panels:
“Writing Next: Next Gen PhD Seminar.” CUNY Graduate Center Writing Seminar. Invited Speaker. August 2017
“Teaching Racist Texts: Pedagogical Challenges.” Modern Literature Association Conference. Chicago, January 2014.
“How to do Things with Twilight: Young Adult Fiction and the College Classroom.” Presenter and Roundtable Co-Organizer. Modern Literature Association Conference, Boston, January 2013.
“Going Public: Pedagogy and Politics in Gender Studies.” Panel: “Public Engagement and the New Professoriate.” Modern Language Association Conference. Philadelphia, PA. December, 2006.
“Teaching Hot Topics: The Role of the Educator in the Politicized Classroom.” Searle Center Teaching Forum. Northwestern University. April 2004.
“The Role of the University: New Directions in Literary Studies.” Panel Organizer. Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. November 2003.
Contemporary Culture and Criticism:
“On Crabbiness.” Panel: Roundtable on the Work of Reading at the Present Time. ASAP Conference: Oakland, November 2017. Forthcoming
“Petty Little Dystopias.” Symposium on the History of Genre. University of California, Irvine. Irvine, May 2017. Invited Talk.
“The Function of Collaboration at the Present Time.” Prose Fiction Division Official Panel. MLA Annual Conference, Philadelphia, 2017.
“Game of Thrones’ Hurt Girls and Girls.” Betalevel Errata Salon, Los Angeles, April 2015. Invited Talk.
“Stories to Pass On: Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and the Critical Relation to African American Literature.” Prose Division Panel, “Attention Spans.” MLA Annual Conference, Vancouver 2015.
Nineteenth-Century Literary Studies:
“Who Would Have Thought It? and the Sentiments of Failure.” C19: Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. March 2014.
“Debt, Race, and the Proslavery Critique of Capitalism.” American Studies Association Annual Conference. Washington, DC. November 2013.
“Freedom’s Southern Prospects: South America in Anglophone Slavery Debates, 1833-1888.” Conference for the Society of the Study of Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Berkeley, CA. April 2012.
“Southernness, Slavery, and Sentimental Fiction: Sarah Josepha Hale’sNorthwood and the South.” Presenter and Panel Chair, “Antebellum Souths.” Society for the Study of Southern Literature Biennial Conference, Nashville, TN. March 2012.
“Witnessing Violence: Slavery and the Sentiments of Cruelty in Ida May and Caste.” Paper and Panel Organizer, “Sentimentalism’s Unread Stories of Slavery.” Modern Language Association Conference, Seattle, January 2012.
“A Queer Taste: The Economics of Black Masculinity.” American Literature Association. Boston. May 2011.
“Marie St. Clare, The Bondwoman’s Narative, and the Sentiments of Slavery.” C19: Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Inaugural Conference. State College, PA. May 2010.
“Maria McIntosh, Antebellum Women’s Fiction, and the Proslavery Perspective.” American Literature Association, special panel for the Society of the Study of American Women Authors. Boston. May 2009.
“Race and Genre in Frank J. Webb’s The Garies and their Friends.” Panel Organizer and Chair. Conference for the International Society of Narrative. Austin, Texas, May 1, 2008.
“Sentiment, Slavery, and the Novels of Caroline Lee Hentz.” Invited speaker. Northwestern English Recruiting Weekend Colloquium. March, 2008.
"Performing Interiority: Narrating 'Right' Feeling in Uncle Tom's Cabin.” Panel Chair. Conference for the International Society of Narrative. Washington D.C. March 16, 2007.
“ ‘Trifles to Relate:’ Caroline Lee Hentz, the Relations of Slavery, and the Problems of Sentimental Literature.” Midwest Modern Language Association Conference. Chicago, IL. November, 2006.
" 'Read Uncle Tom's Cabin Again': De-Narrating Autobiography in Mary Chesnut's Civil War." Conference for the International Society of Narrative. Ottawa, Canada. April 9, 2006.
“Feeling the National Family: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Globalization of Sentiment.” Globalization Is/In AmericaInterdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference. Evanston, IL. April 29, 2004.
Teaching Experience
University of Southern California, Los Angeles: Lecturer and Assistant Professor
Fall 2017: Writing 340, Writing in the Disciplines (Arts and Humanities; Health Sciences)
Spring 2017: Writing 340, Writing in the Disciplines (Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences)
Spring 2016: Writing 340, Writing in the Disciplines (Arts and Humanities)
Fall 2015: Writing 340, Writing in the Disciplines (Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences)
Spring 2015: Writing 340, Writing in the Disciplines (Arts and Humanities)
Fall 2014: Writing 150, Critical Thinking and Writing (Aesthetics)
University of California, Los Angeles: Visiting Assistant Professor and Lecturer
English 3: Writing and Composition
Topics in American Literary Study
Gender, Culture, and Aesthetics in YA Literature, 1791-2012 (English 177)
American Fiction to 1900 (English 167B)
Topics in Gender and Textual Study (English M107B)
Violence, Aesthetics, Identity: Keywords in Gender and Textual Study
Seminar in Nineteenth Century Literature (English 182B: 3)
Mean Girls: Women and Violence in 19c Literature
Topics in Nineteenth Century Literature (Eng 177:1)
Desperate Nineteenth Century Housewives.
University of Michigan: Postdoctoral Fellow
Colonial and Revolutionary American Literature (ENG 470):
Imagining Americas.
Women and Literature (ENG 315; Women’s Studies 315):
Desperate Literary Housewives.
Victorian Literature (ENG 462):
Stories from the Age of Steam.
Women and Literature (ENG 315; Women’s Studies 315):
Women, Gender, and Race in the American Renaissance. Winter 2009.
Northwestern University: Lecturer
Introductory Seminar in Reading and Interpretation (ENG 298):
Reading and Interpreting Gender. Fall 2008.
Freshman Seminar (ENG 101-6):
Desperate American Housewives. Winter 2009.
Studies in African American Literature (ENG 366):
The Slavery Debates. Winter 2009.
Twentieth Century Literature (ENG 378):
New Orleans in America. Spring 2009.
Studies in American Literature: American Novel (English 371):
Desperate American Housewives. Spring 2009.
Northwestern University: Teaching Assistant
American Literary Traditions: Founding to 1850 (English 270-1)
Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Literature (English 273)
Introduction to Poetry (English 211-0)
Affiliations
C19: Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century America
Executive Committee Member: Communications Chair
Modern Language Association
References
Julia SternChristine Holten
Professor, English & American StudiesDirector, UCLA Writing Center
Northwestern UniversityUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Department of EnglishWriting Program
215 University Hall126 Humanities Bldg
1897 Sheridan Road Box 951384
Evanston, IL 60208-2240Los Angeles, CA 90095
847-491-7294310-206-6817
Jay Grossman Peter Coviello
Associate Professor of EnglishProfessor of English
Northwestern UniversityBowdoin College
Department of EnglishDepartment of English
215 University Hall101 Massachusetts Hall
1897 Sheridan Road8300 College Station
Evanston, IL 60208-2240Brunswick, ME 04011
847-491-7294207-725-3516