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Kristen B. Proehl
Department of English
SUNY, The College at Brockport
217 Liberal Arts Building
Brockport, NY 14420
[email protected]
EDUCATION
Ph.D. American Studies, The College of William and Mary, 2011
Dissertation Title: “Battling Girlhood: Sympathy, Race and the Tomboy
Narrative in American Literature”
Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth L. Barnes
M.A.
American Studies, The College of William and Mary, 2004
B.A.
English, University of Puget Sound, 2002, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
ACADEMIC POSITION
Assistant Professor of English, SUNY-Brockport, 2013-present
RESEARCH AND TEACHING SPECIALIZATIONS
Children’s and Young Adult Literature; Feminist and Queer Theory; Critical Race Studies; Affect
Theory and Sentimentalism; Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature
HONORS AND AWARDS
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Outstanding Academic Advising Award, Institute for Engaged Learning, SUNY-The
College at Brockport, 2016.
Jacques and Dawn Lipson Special Opportunity Grant, The College at Brockport, 2016.
Promoting Excellence in Diversity Grant, The College at Brockport, 2016.
Mary Lily Research Grant, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture,
Duke University, 2016.
New York State/ United University Professions, Drescher Pre-Tenure Research Leave,
Spring 2016.
CELT Conference Travel Funding (for attendance at the Race and Pedagogy National
Conference), The College at Brockport, Fall 2014.
Pre-Tenure Faculty Development Award, The College at Brockport, 2014.
Children’s Literature Association Faculty Research Grant, 2014.
NEH Summer Scholar, “Transcendentalism and Social Action in the Age of Emerson,
Thoreau, and Fuller.” Summer Institute. Concord, MA, July 2013.
Modern Language Association Travel Grant, January 2013.
Graduate Caucus Essay Award, Northeast MLA, 2011.
Friends of the Princeton Library Research Grant, Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton
University, Summer 2009.
Graduate Student Travel Award, Northeast MLA, 2010.
Annette K. Baxter Travel Grant, American Studies Association, Fall 2007.
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Dean’s Prize for Scholarship on Women, College of William and Mary, 2005.
Writing Excellence Award in the Humanities, UPS, 2002.
TEACHING (selected)
State University of New York, The College of Brockport, Fall 2013-present
Honors 112: Introduction to Honors
English 112: College Composition
English 482/582: Children’s Literature
English 397/484: Young Adult Literature
English 684: Young Adult Literature (graduate seminar)
Clemson University, Department of English, 2010-present
Adolescent Literature (advanced survey)
Children’s Literature (advanced survey)
American Literature: 1620-1945 (introductory survey)
World Literature (introductory survey)
Technical Writing (advanced writing requirement for science majors)
American Literature Survey I: Contact period to 1865 (advanced survey for majors)
College of William and Mary, Department of English, 2007-2010
Freshman Writing Seminar: Girlhood in American Literature (first-year writing)
American Literature, Themes and Issues: Memory, Trauma, and American
Writers
(humanities requirement)
American Literature, 1865-1920 (advanced survey for majors)
College of William and Mary, American Studies Program, 2005-06
Violence, Visionaries and Change in American Literature (interdisciplinary senior
seminar)
Teaching Assistant, Introduction to American Studies: American Popular Culture,
(interdisciplinary humanities requirement)
PUBLICATIONS
Articles and Book Chapters
“Coming of Age in the Queer South: Friendship and Social Difference in The Heart is a Lonely
Hunter.” Carson McCullers in the Twenty-First Century, Eds. Casey Kayser and Alison
Graham-Bertolini. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Forthcoming.
“Tomboyism and Familial Belonging in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding: Queer
Sentiments.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 7.1 (2015): 87-109.
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“Educating Jo March: Plumfield, Romanticism, and the Tomboy Trajectory in the Alcott
Trilogy.” Romantic Education in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: National and
Transatlantic Contexts, Eds. Monika Elbert and Lesley Ginsberg. New York, NY:
Routledge, 2014. 42-56.
“Sympathetic Jo: Tomboyism, Poverty and Race in Little Women.” Sentimentalism in NineteenthCentury America: Literary and Cultural Practices, Ed. Mary De Jong. Madison, NJ:
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013. 105-119.
“Transforming the ‘Madman’ into a ‘Saint’: The Cultural Memory Site of John Brown’s
Raid on Harper’s Ferry in Antislavery Literature and History.” The Afterlife of John
Brown, Eds. Andrew Taylor and Eldrid Herrington. New York: Palgrave MacMillan,
2005. 107-120.
Shorter Pieces / Critical Companions
“Poverty and Social Critique in Postbellum America: Little Women and Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn.” Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott. Eds. Gregory Eiselein and Anne
Phillips. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press, 2016.
“Sympathetic Alliances: Tomboys, ‘Sissy’ Boys and Queer Friendship in The Member of the
Wedding and To Kill a Mockingbird.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes
and Reviews. 26.2 (2013): 128-133.
“Virtue vs. Vengeance: Examining the ‘Quality of Mercy’ in the Human Relationships of The
Tempest, The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure.” The Journal of the
Wooden O Symposium. 1 (2001): 125-131.
Review Essays, Book Reviews, and Reference Works (selected)
Review Essay, “Sympathetic Childhoods: Girl Orphans, Adoptions, and Re-Imagined Families in
Sentimental Studies.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 43.1 (2015): 295-8.
Book Review of Robin Bernstein’s Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood and Race
from Slavery to Civil Rights. African American Review 46.1 (2013): 187-189.
Review Essay, “Politicizing Youth: Childhood Studies on Social Change.” American Quarterly
64.1 (2012): 171-180.
Book Review of Over the Rainbow: Queer Children’s and Young Adult Literature, Eds. Kenneth
Kidd and Michelle Ann Abate. Children’s Literature 40 (2012): 287-291.
Review of Franny Nudelman’s John Brown’s Body: Slavery, Violence and the Culture of
War in Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research 31.4 (2006).
Sherman Alexie headnote, The Wadsworth Themes in American Literature Series, Ed. Jay Parini.
Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2008.
Works in Progress
Battling Girlhood: Sympathy, Social Justice, and the Tomboy Narrative in American Literature
(book manuscript in revision)
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Queer Friendship in Young Adult Literature (book manuscript in progress)
“’Love of Kindred Spirits’: Queer Friendship and the Evangelical Bildungsroman from The
Wide, Wide World to Anne of Green Gables.” Saving the World: Girlhood and
Evangelicalism in the Nineteenth-Century, Eds. Allison Giffen and Robin Cadwallader.
(article in revision)
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (selected)
“’Once there was a Hushpuppy’: Sentimental Protest and the Tomboy Tradition in Beasts of the
Southern Wild,” Children’s Literature Association Annual Convention, Columbia,
South Carolina, June 2014.
"Queer Sentiments: Tomboys and Familial Belonging in Carson McCullers's The Member of the
Wedding," Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Chicago, January 2014.
“The Blank Slate: Poverty and Sentimental Pedagogy in Louisa May Alcott’s Jo’s Boys and
Little Men,” American Studies Association Annual Convention, Washington, D.C.,
November 2013.
Respondent, “Race, Girlhood and Social Justice in Children’s Literature,” co-sponsored by the
Children’s Literature Association and the Committee on Literature by Peoples of Color in
the U.S. and Canada, Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Boston, 2013.
“Educating Jo: Plumfield, Sympathy, and the Tomboy Trajectory,” Teaching Prospects: Young
Women as Educators and the Politics of the Schoolroom, Society for the Study of
American Women Writers Conference, Denver, October 2012.
“After To Kill a Mockingbird: Tomboyism and Multi-Ethnic Girlhood in Contemporary
Children’s/Young Adult Literature,” National Women’s Studies Association
Convention, Atlanta, November 2011.
“Sympathetic Alliances: Tomboys, ‘Sissy Boys,’ and Queer Friendship in Literature of the
American South, 1940s-1960,” Berkshire Conference on the History of Women,
Amherst, June 2011.
SERVICE
Grants Committee, Children’s Literature Association, 2016Freshman Reading Committee, The College at Brockport, Fall 2015; Fall 2016SEFA/ Faculty-Staff Campaign Representative, English Department, The College at Brockport,
Fall 2015.
Faculty Sponsor, English Club, The College at Brockport, Spring 2015- Fall 2015; Fall 2016Curriculum Committee, Department of English, The College at Brockport, 2013-14; Fall 2015.
Graduate Program Committee, English Department, The College at Brockport, 2014-15; Fall
2016Panel Chair, Scholars Day, The College at Brockport, April 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Article Manuscript Reviewer, Mississippi Quarterly, 2014; Journal of the Midwest Modern
Language Association, 2016.
Textbook Reviewer, Oxford University Press, 2013.