I received my PhD in English Literature from Emory University in May of 1997. In November of 1996 I began working for the Information Technology Division at Emory in the field of academic computing. As the Educational Analyst in the Humanities, I assisted faculty with using different technologies in their teaching and research. In October 1999, I moved to the College Administration as Academic Technology Coordinator and in 2000 became the Director of Academic Computing for Emory College. I also teach classes in the College (see classes). For more details, see my resume.
My dissertation, "'Language is the Dress of Thought: Stylistic Literacies and Social Categories in Eighteenth-Century Great Britain," examines texts providing advice to writers and speakers to examine how instruction in the English language becomes an important means of constructing and regulating social categories. Covering roughly the period 1730-1800, I examine the kinds of stylistic injunctions made--the imperative to speak perspicuously, for example--and argue that such imperatives help to construct the subject positions available to men and women of different regions and classes.
In the end, the call for certain stylistic traits--strength, delicacy, perspicuity, and ease--helps to instantiate both an internal character and an external representation, both an essence and a performance, appropriate for British subjects. As such, style plays a major role in articulating a coherent national identity that would establish the nation as worthy of the political and economic gains made during this period.
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