D. Leif Eckstrom
Curriculum Vitae
Department of English
210 East Hall
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
[email protected]
5942 N. Paulina Street
Apartment 3
Chicago, IL 60660
(312) 363-9813
[email protected]
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English, Tufts University
M.A., English, Loyola University Chicago
B.A., English, George Fox University, summa cum laude
Keble College, Oxford University
Expected February 2016
2006
2000
Fall 1999
DISSERTATION
Untimely Verse: Occasional Poetry and Exemplary Circulation in Antebellum America
Director: Virginia Jackson, University of California, Irvine.
Committee: Radiclani Clytus, Brown University; Meredith McGill, Rutgers University.
Untimely Verse reconsiders the fate of occasional verse in the antebellum period. Arguing against
the twentieth-century idea that specific forms and modes of address doomed antebellum verse to
an early obsolescence, Untimely Verse retraces the exemplary, extended circulation of certain
occasional poems that gave rise to a more nuanced, nineteenth-century understanding of the
writing, printing, and reading of poems. This study aims to restore the complexities of reading in
time to our current understanding of the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, Rufus Wilmot Griswold,
Edgar A. Poe, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville.
PUBLICATIONS
Forthcoming:
Digital Teaching Edition of William J. Wilson’s “Afric-American Picture Gallery” (1859), co-edited
with Britt Rusert for Just Teach One: Early African American Print, Common-Place.org, American
Antiquarian Society, http://www.common-place.org/jtoaa/?page_id=121, Forthcoming Fall
2015.
Articles:
“On Puffing: The Saturday Press and the Circulation of Symbolic Capital,” in Whitman among the
Bohemians, eds. Joanna Levin and Edward Whitley (University of Iowa Press, 2014), 53-74.
Leif Eckstrom | CV
ACADEMIC AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
English Department Dissertation Fellowship, Tufts University
2011
Summer Dissertation Fellowship, Tufts University
2010
Provost Fellowship, Tufts University
2007-2009
CONFERENCE PAPERS
Panel co-organizer with Britt Rusert, “Re-thinking Early African American Print and Visual Culture
in the Afric-American Picture Gallery”; presenter, “The Dialectical Image and the Diachronic
Public in the ‘Afric-American Picture Gallery.’” African American Expression in Print and Digital
Culture conference, Madison, Wisconsin. September 19-21, 2014.
“Phillis Wheatley’s Antebellum Itineraries.” NeMLA, Boston, Massachusetts. March 21-24, 2013.
“Mobility in Print: Phillis Wheatley and the ‘Afric-American Picture Gallery.’” MLA, Boston,
Massachusetts. January 3-6, 2013.
Panel organizer and chair, “How to Read The New-York Saturday Press”; presenter, “On Puffing: The
New-York Saturday Press and Secondary Modes of Literary Production.” MLA, Seattle,
Washington. January 5-8, 2012.
“On Puffing: Henry Clapp, The New-York Saturday Press, and Secondary Genres of Literary
Production.” American Literature Association’s Annual Conference, Boston, Massachusetts. May
26-29, 2011.
“Versifiers No More: Walt Whitman, The Saturday Press, and the Re-Making of Genre.” Imagining: A
New Century, C-19 Inaugural Conference, State College, Pennsylvania. May 20-23, 2010.
Graduate Caucus Participant. Crossing the Bar Conference: Transatlantic Poetics in the Nineteenth
Century, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. March 5-6, 2010.
“The Body as Event: Reading Figures and Marking Death in Phillis Wheatley’s Broadside Elegies.”
Marking the Event, Tufts University Graduate Student Conference, Medford, Massachusetts.
October 24, 2008.
Futures Participant. Presented in Seminar Workshop: “Reading the Figures in Phillis Wheatley’s
Poetry.” Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College. June 16-21, 2008.
“‘Not Words and Blood, But Words Alone’: Poetic Confrontations with Representation in Herman
Melville’s ‘Donelson’ and Walt Whitman’s ‘The Wound-Dresser.’” M/MLA Annual Conference,
Chicago, Illinois. November 9-12, 2006.
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Leif Eckstrom | CV
FIELDS OF SPECIALIZATION
Early and Nineteenth-Century (African) American Poetry, Literature, and Cultures of Print;
Historical Poetics; History of the Book; Genre Theory; Periodical and Media Studies; Theory and
Histories of Reading; Phillis Wheatley; Walt Whitman; and Herman Melville.
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Research Assistant for The Lyric Theory Reader: A Critical Anthology, edited by Virginia Jackson and
Yopie Prins (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
All courses individually developed and taught.
Graduate Student Lecturer
Tufts University
English 2 (Expository Writing 2, Conformity and Rebellion theme)
Thin Rebellions: The Avant-garde and Mass Culture
The Age of Revolutions: Youth Culture and Its Discontents
Public Apologies, Public Scandals
Spring 2010
Spring 2009
Spring 2008
English 1 (Expository Writing 1)
Arguments that Matter
Demystifying the Work of the Ivory Tower
Writing with--and against--the Grain
Fall 2009
Fall 2008
Fall 2007
Instructor of Record
Loyola University Chicago
UCWR 110 (Undergraduate Writing Seminar)
The Global Cinema: Writing about International Films
Writing about Auteur and Independent Filmmakers
Spring 2007
Fall 2006
GRADUATE SEMINARS
Tufts University
Reading Whitman, Virginia Jackson
Art and Literature of the Black Atlantic World, Radiclani Clytus
On the Late Sublime, Lecia Rosenthal
Lyric Theory, Virginia Jackson
Transatlantic Print Culture and Early American Lit., Elizabeth Maddock Dillon
British Visual/Narrative Theory across the Long 19th Century, Sonia Hofkosh
Independent Study in Early American Literature, Virginia Jackson
The Victorian Novel, Joseph Litvak
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Leif Eckstrom | CV
Loyola University Chicago
American Romanticism, Christopher Castiglia
Chaucer and the Aesthetics of Reception, Allen Frantzen
The Romantic History of Technology, Steven Jones
Donne, Jonson, and Their Lyric Legacies, Christopher Kendrick
Narrative Theory, Steven Venturino
Contemporary Global Literature in English, Paul Jay
Teaching College Composition, Frank Fennell
Magic in Early Modern Literature and Culture, James Biester
American Poetry: 1830-1914, Jack Kerkering
The Modern Catholic Novel, Mark Bosco
Postcolonial Theory and Literature, Harveen Sachdeva Mann
Introduction to Graduate Study and Critical Theory, Paul Jay
SERVICE AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Dissertation Writing Exchange, Tufts English Department
2010-Present
Transatlantic Reading Group, Tufts English Department
2009-2010
Transnational Studies Working Group, Tufts University
2009-2010
RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Coordinator of the Graduate Writing Program
2009-2010
Tufts University, Academic Resource Center
Oversaw daily operations of the Graduate Writing Program: reviewed session reports; organized and led monthly
meetings; facilitated communication between tutors, staff, and tutees. In tandem with the Assistant Director:
encouraged program development; revised group goals, materials, and strategies; interviewed, hired, and trained new
tutors.
Graduate Writing Consultant
2008-2010
Tufts University, Academic Resource Center
Led one-on-one tutoring sessions with students working on various writing projects with the goal of guiding students
towards greater independence, confidence, and control as writers.
Writing Center Tutor
2005-2006
Loyola University Chicago
Helped students craft structurally sound and well-reasoned writing samples across the major disciplines.
Lead-Tutor and Assistant Manager
2003-2005
Loyola Community Literacy Center, Loyola University Chicago
Supervised twenty-plus learner-tutor pairs at this adult literacy (and ESL) center, assisting and directing
community volunteers and Loyola Univ. student-tutors with lesson plans, materials, and teaching strategies for
their one-on-one tutoring sessions.
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Leif Eckstrom | CV
English Teacher
2001-2003
ECC English Academy, Buk-Gwangju, South Korea
Taught all aspects and levels of conversational English to Korean students from the ages of five to adult, writing
and organizing lesson plans while working with an international faculty.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
MLA
C19
REFERENCES
Virginia Jackson, UCI Endowed Chair in Rhetoric,
Department of English, University of California, Irvine,
400 Humanities Instructional Building, Mail Code 2650
Irvine, CA 92697
[email protected]
Radiclani Clytus, Assistant Professor of English and American Studies
Brown University, Department of English
Box 1852, 70 Brown St.
Providence, RI 02912.
[email protected]
Meredith M. McGill, Associate Professor of English
Rutgers University, Department of English
36 Union Street, Room 208, College Avenue Campus
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
[email protected]
Edward Whitley, Associate Professor of English
Lehigh University, Department of English
113 Drown Hall, 35 Sayre Dr.
Bethlehem, PA 18015
[email protected]
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