Leadership Experience
2017-present Associate Dean and Director, Whittier Scholars Program.
Whittier College. (Associate Director 2014 – 2017.)
Founder and Director, Digital Liberal Arts Program. 2013-present
Principle Investigator, Writer, and Director, $700,000 Andrew W Mellon Foundation Grant: “Curricular Renewal through the Advancement of Information Fluency and Digital Media Scholarship.” January 2017 – September 2021. Press release.
Principle Investigator and Co-Director, $750,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant: “Using Digital Technologies to Advance the Liberal Arts Curriculum at Whittier College,” October 2013-December 2017. Press release.
Finalist, Best Educational Use of a Social Network, 2014 Edublog Awards for #TvsZ 6.0.
Evaluator, “Consortium on Digital Resources for Teaching and Research.” Council of Independent Colleges, Washington, DC, 2016 – 2018.
Program Committee Member, Modern Language Association, 2019-2021
Academic Positions
Professor, Department of English, 2018-present. (Associate Professor 2013 – 2018, Assistant Professor 2007 – 2013).
Visiting Fellowship, Chawton House Library, April 2014
Visiting Fellow, University of Southampton, 2014-2015.
Teaching Assistant, Department of English, Cornell University 2005-2007
Teaching Assistant, John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University 2001-2002, 2003-2004
Education
Certificate HERS Institute, Bryn Mawr, July 2019
Ph.D. English Language and Literature, Cornell University, August 2007
M.A. English Language and Literature, Cornell University, January 2004
B.A. English Literature, Univ of California, Berkeley, December 1999
High Honors, Phi Beta Kappa
Publications and Keynote Talks
“Men who would not be kings: Sacrilizing Colonialist Trauma in Kipling’s ‘Man who would be King.’” in Traumatic Tales: British Nationhood and National Trauma in Nineteenth-Century Literature, ed. Lisa Kasmer. (Routledge, 9/2017).
“Hybrid Pedagogy, Embodied Learning, and Material Culture in Jane Austen.” Ed. Lindsey Eckert and Lissette Lopez Szwydky. “Romanticism and Technology,” Romantic Circles Pedagogy Commons. Forthcoming (2017).
“Critical Digital Pedagogy, Public Scholarship, & Digital Well-being.” Keynote. Council of Independent Colleges Consortium on Digital Resources, Washington DC. (September 2016)
“Wait, does that count? Critical Pedagogy as Digital Humanities.” Keynote, “Making Digital Humanities” University of California, San Diego (June 2015).
“Hastening Together to Perfect Felicity”: Teaching the British Gothic Tradition through Parody and Role-Playing.” Persuasions On-Line 34.2 (Spring 2014).
“White Rajas, Native Princes and Savage Pirates: Lord Jim and the Cult of White Masculinity.” Journal of Victorian Culture 17.3 (2012) 287-308.
Digital Projects and Publications
Digital Liberal Arts Program, Whittier College diglibarts.whittier.edu
- DigLibArts (#diglibarts, @diglibarts) is a collaborative initiative I spearheaded and continue to lead in order to foster enthusiasm and skills for digital pedagogies and undergraduate digital scholarship across the Whittier College campus. DigLibArts now operates in lieu of a Teaching and Learning Center, and has provided mentoring and support to more than 70% of the Whittier College faculty as well as innumerable students and staff members. Staffed by two academic technology experts with complementary skills, a group of Student Technology Liaisons, and a volunteer Steering Committee of faculty from across campus, DigLibArts has been grant-funded from 2013 through 2020. Our projects range from teaching collaborations within and beyond campus, to support for sustained faculty research, to our new 2020 Initiative which seeks to promote digital well-being across campus and throughout the liberal arts curriculum.
Virtually Connecting: http://bit.ly/vchastac15
- Using emerging technology, this all-volunteer project seeks to enliven conferences for virtual participants and increase open access to scholarly meetings and institutes.
#TvsZ: A MOOG http://tvsz.us/
- #TvsZ is an award-winning massive open online game (MOOG) originating on Twitter which engages students and community members in transnational, collaborative, and transmedia storytelling. Its decentralized format and open learning ethos blurs the boundaries between teacher, community, and student and brings up moments of productive risk that foster network fluencies and critical digital citizenship. The game was invented by Jesse Stommel and Pete Rorabaugh, and has become a collaborative effort led by myself, Pete Rorabaugh, Maha Bali, Janine De Baise, Christina Hendricks, JR Dingwall, and Lizzie Finnegan. Recent hosted versions: June 2014, November 2014, February 2015, April 2015.
Digital Humanities/Social Justice Projects and Resources: http://bit.ly/diigosocjust
- A crowd-sourced bibliography of digital social justice resources
Critical Digital Pedagogy Resources and Tools: bit.ly/profrehntools
- A curated and hyperlinked toolbox
Professional Twitter Profile: @profrehn (980+ followers, 7100+ Tweets, etc)
Selected Conference Papers and Invited Talks
“Digital Liberal Arts and Collaborative Scholarship.” Invited Talk. University of Puget Sound (January 2017).
“Academic Twitter: #AACU17 @Twitter.” AACU Annual Meeting. (January 2017).
“Virtually Connecting as a Model for Transformative Learning.” Digital Media and Learning Conference, UC Irvine, with Alan Levine, Autumm Caines, Maha Bali, Mia Zamora, Nadine Aboulmagd, and Rebecca Hogue. (October 2016).
“Digital Liberal Arts in Practice.” Invited Talk. College of Idaho. (June 2016).
“Digital Doppelgangers.” British Women Writers Conference, University of Georgia, Athens. (June 2016)
“#AACU16 @Twitter Backchannel: An Introduction.” AACU Annual Meeting. (January 2016)
“Playing to Learn: Open Education Pedagogies for Networked Learning.” AACU Annual Meeting, with Maha Bali. (January 2016)
“From MOOCs to MOOGs: Teaching with Open Online Games.” #dLRN2015, Stanford University, with Christina Hendricks and Maha Bali. (October 2015)
“E-portfolios and Critical Digital Pedagogy.” Invited Lecture, Dominican University of California. (August 2015).
“Doing Digital Liberal Arts: Projects and Pedagogies on Student-Centered Campuses.” Panelist with William Pannapacker, Jacob Heil, Janet Simmons, and Alex Galarza. HASTAC Annual Conference, Lansing, MI (May 2015).
“Perforating the Classroom: How Hacking the Online Game #TvsZ 6.0 Brings Together Faculty, Students & Community Members” (lead presenter) with Maha Bali, Janine DeBlaise, Christina Hendricks, Pete Rorabaugh, and JR Dingwall. Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Annual Conference, Dallas, TX (April 2015).
“Perforate Your Classroom: Collaboratively Hack the Open Online Game #TvsZ 6.0” with Maha Bali, Janine DeBlaise, Christina Hendricks, Pete Rorabaugh, and JR Dingwall. Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Annual Conference, Dallas, TX (April 2015).
“Remixing #TvsZ: Hacking Games, Narratives, and Borders.” With Pete Rorabaugh and Maha Bali. Educause Learning Initiative Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA (February 2015).
“Connective Pedagogies: Trans-Campus Collaborations and the Pedagogy of Risk.” Presented with Anne Cong-Huyen. Digital Pedagogy Institute. University of Toronto, Scarborough. (August 2014)
“Becoming James: Jane Austen and the Rajah of Sarawak” – Nineteenth Century Studies Association (NCSA), CSU Fresno (March 2013)
“Canonical Cannon: Janeites in Borneo,” seminar paper—North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA), University of Wisconsin, Madison (September 2012)
“Beyond England: Victorian Networking and the Emergence of Transnational Communities,” panel moderator—NAVSA, University of Wisconsin, Madison (September 2012)
“Jane Austen Goes to Borneo.” Public Lecture, NEH Summer Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia (July 2012)
“Brazen Images: Kipling’s ‘Man who would be King,’ Newspaper Heroism, and Parody”—Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Convention, Rochester, NY (March 2012)
“Isabella Bird Takes Flight: Photograph, Narrative, and Audience in the Asian Travel Books—Travel in the Nineteenth Century Conference, Lincoln University, Lincoln, UK (July 2011)
“Very bad; got a novel, and read all day”: James Brooke, Sympathy, and Sovereignty—NAVSA, Yale University (November 2008)
“Rajah Brooke, Lord Jim and Informal Imperialism”— NAVSA, Purdue University (September 2006)
“Criminal Conquest: ‘White Rajah’ James Brooke, Piracy and Massacre”—Victorian Criminalities Conference, University of Exeter, UK (April 2005)
“Piracy and Public Opinion: Sovereignty through Acquisition in Nineteenth Century Sarawak” —American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Pennsylvania State U. (March 2005)
“Topographies of Home: Reading Place and Race in Tennyson’s ‘Locksley Hall’” Cornell English Graduate Student Conference, “‘There’s No Place Like Home’: Writing Home” (February 2003)
“Displaced Text: Isabella Bird, Travel Narrative, and the Age of Reproducible Photography”—British Women Writers Conference, University of Wisconsin, Madison (April 2002)
Research Institutes, Professional Service, and Affiliations
Steering Committee Member and Track Chair for Pedagogy, OLC Innovate 2016 & 2017, New Orleans, LA.
Steering Committee Member, JASNA Annual General Meeting 2017, Huntington Beach, CA.
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminar Grant, University of Missouri, Columbia, June-July 2012. Course Leader: Devoney Looser
Founder and Director, Digital Liberal Arts Program, Whittier College, 2013-present.
Member, Educational Resources Committee, 2016-present (ex oficio)
Member, Educational Policies Committee, 2016 – present (ex oficio)
Chair, Digital Liberal Arts Steering Committee, 2013-2016.
Vice-Chair of the Faculty. Elected for 2016-17.
Member, Educational Policies Committee, 2015-2016.
Member, Educational Resources Committee, 2015-present.
Digital Humanities Summer Institute participant— Digital Public Humanities (June 2017), Visualising Information: Where Data Meets Design (June 2015), Out-of-the-Box Text Analysis (June 2014), Large Project Planning Workshop (June 2013), University of Victoria.
FemTechNet member, 2014-2017.
Austin College Digital Humanities Colloquium—Austin College, February 2013. This working conference, coordinated by NITLE (National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education), fostered collaborations among liberal arts colleges working in digital humanities.
Co-Editor, Victorian Poetry and Poetics in Context – this digital humanities site aims to become a digital scholarly resource, written by undergraduate and graduate students, for Victorian poetry research. Hosted by University of Victoria.
“First Impressions at the Ball”—invited lecture on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for Whittier College Language and Culture Summer Immersion Program, July 2012
NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, University of Missouri, Columbia—participant in “Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries” led by Devoney Looser, June & July, 2012
Member, Whittier Scholar’s Council, Whittier College, 2011-present
Member, Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (URSCA) Planning Committee, Whittier College 2012-2013
Secretary/Treasurer of the Faculty and member of the Faculty Executive Committee, Whittier College 2010-2011
“Evidenced Based Class Discussions”—proposed and chaired panel as part of the Faculty Pedagogy Series, sponsored by the Faculty Masters Program, Whittier College, September 2010
Paired Course Development Grant, Center for Collaboration with the Arts, Whittier College, July 2012
School of Criticism and Theory (SCT), Cornell University, Tuition Fellowship Summer 2004
Martin Sampson Teaching Award, Department of English, Cornell University May 2004
Cornell University Provost’s Diversity Fellowship 2002-2003
Sage Fellowship, Cornell University 2000-2001
W.H. Hill Scholarship for Outstanding English Major, University of California, Berkeley 1999
Member, Assessment Committee, Whittier College, 2009-2010
Member, WASC Steering Committee, Whittier College, 2009-2010
Member, Faculty Affairs Committee, Whittier College, 2007-2009
School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University—participant in seminar “Permanent War,” lead by Srinivas Aravamudan and Ranjana Khanna, June & July, 2004
Member, Academic Integrity Hearing Board (AIHB), Cornell University, School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions 2004-2006
Graduate Student Member, Graduate Policy and Procedure Committee, 2002-2004 Department of English, Cornell University
Conference Committee Chair and Co-Founder, 2002 and 2003 Cornell English Graduate Student Conference
Member, Modern Language Association (MLA)
Member, North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA)
Undergraduate Research Projects Advised
“Fanny’s on the Big Screen: The Troubles of Fanny Price’s Transition from Page to Screen”
Kiara Downs, Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellow, 2015-2017
“Blurring Lines and Crossing Boundaries: Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did”
Breanna Gomez, Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellow, 2015-2017
“Conversations with Birds: Accessing the Language of Nature in Coleridge’s ‘The Nightingale,’” Daniel Chavez, Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellow, 2013-2015
“A Jamaican Celebration of Identity: Cultural Translation, Performance, and Louise Bennett’s Jamaica Labrish,” Kallia Wade, Keck Foundation Research Fellowship, 2011-2012.
“Legal Obstacles: The Creation of Realism in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House,” Jessica Underwood, Whittier Scholars Senior Project, 2012. (Jessica has now completed her JD.)
“Legitimacy & Literature,” Faculty sponsor of panel, URSCA Presentation Day, 2012. Panelists: Nicole Beauchamp (Alumnus, Chair), Megumi Chou, Catherine Faris King, Kallia Wade, Jeff Wilson. (Jeff is now completing a PhD in Religious Studies; Kallia and Nicole have completed MAs, and Catherine is publishing fiction and non-fiction.)
“Austen Adaptations, Contemporary Society, and Gender: Textual Adaptations of Emma and Pride and Prejudice,” Mary Helen Truglia, Keck Foundation Research Fellowship, 2010-2011. (Student then won a Fulbright Fellowship 2011-2012 and is now pursuing a PhD at University of Indiana, Bloomington)
“Into the City: ‘A College Student’s Guide to Los Feliz,’” Whitney Moore, Whittier Scholars Senior Project, 2009.
“Austen’s After-words,” Faculty sponsor of panel, URSCA Presentation Day, 2011. Panelists: Sarah Miranda (Alumnus, Chair), Susan Hood, James Lotti, Mary Helen Truglia
Overview of Teaching
First year Courses:
- “Just a Girl (in the World)”: Contemporary Women Writers (Intd 100)
Fall 2007, 2008, 2011, and 2012 —First Year Writing Seminar - “Why Read?” (English 120)—Gateway to English Major
Fall 2007, 2009, 2010, Spring 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 - “Individual, Identity, Community” (WSP 101) —Gateway to Whittier Scholars
Fall 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and Spring 2017, 2018
Second-year Courses
- “Major British and American Writers from 1660” (English 221) —Sophomore Survey, Spring 2010 and 2011
- “Designing your Education” (WSP 201)—How to Self-design a Major
Fall 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Third-year Courses
- “Victorian Poetry”
Fall 2007 and 2012, Spring 2010 (English 335) - “Nineteenth Century Novel”
Spring 2008, and Fall 2009, 2011, and 2016 (English 332) - “Rise of the Novel”
Fall 2008 (English 331) - “Postcolonial Novel”
Fall 2008, 2010, 2013, and Spring 2012 (English 358) - “Jane Austen in Context”
Spring 2009, 2016, and Fall 2010, 2013 (English 333) - “Travel Writing”
Spring 2009 and 2011 (paired with Drawing 1) (English 388) - “Gothic Fiction”
Spring 2009, Spring 2013 (paired with Psychology of Human Sexuality) (English 337) - “Nature, Theory and Bases of Knowledge”
Spring 2018 (WSP 301) - “Internship in Whittier Scholars Program”
Fall 2017 (WSP 399)
Fourth-year Courses
- “Imperial Romance”—Senior Seminar
Spring 2008 and Fall 2012 (English 410) - “Critical Procedures”—Capstone Theory Seminar
Fall 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, and Spring 2013, 2015 (English 400) - “Senior Seminar in Whittier Scholars Program”
Fall 2017 (WSP 401) - “Senior Project in Whittier Scholars Program”
Fall 2017 (WSP 499)
Department of English, Cornell University, 2005-2007
Led discussion sections and gave some lectures in upper division Children’s Literature survey (with James Eli Adams), British Literature survey (with Hina Nazar), and Film Criticism (with Lynda Bogel).
John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University, 2001-2002, 2003-2005
Designed and taught seminar-style writing intensive literature courses for freshman. Various courses introduced the study of film, gender, and short stories.
