Margaret E. Mitchell

 

605 Rome St.

Carrollton, Georgia 30117

(678) 839-4852  mmitchel@westga.edu

_________________________________________________________________

 

Education

 

Ph.D. in English, University of Connecticut, 2004.

M.A.. in English, University of Connecticut, 1995.                    

B.A. in English, Cornell University, 1992.

 

Dissertation   

Reconfiguring Gender at the Fin de Siècle: George Gissing and Social Progress.

 

Employment

                        Assistant Professor of English, State University of West Georgia. 2004-.

 

Scholarly Publications

 

“Reforming Beauty in Brontë’s Shirley.” Gender and Reform: Selected Essays from Victorians Institute Conference, Oct. 2006. Ed. Anita Rose. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Forthcoming.

 

“‘Children of the Street’: Reconfiguring Gender in Gissing’s London.” Gissing and the City: Cultural Crisis and the Making of Books in Late-Victorian England.  Palgrave Macmillan. John Spiers, ed. 2005. 129-138.

 

“Gissing’s Moral Mischief: Prostitutes and Narrative Resolution.”  Studies in the Novel 37.4 (Winter 2005).

 

“Preface: ‘The Mirror is Doubtless Defective.’” Special Issue: Nineteenth-Century British Literary Realism. Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory. Guest Editor. 14.3 (2003): 179-84.

 

“‘Dreadful Necessities’: Nature and the Performance of Gender in Memoirs of a Woman of  Pleasure.Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 32.3 (2003): 305-24.          

 

“Fay Weldon.” British Writers: Supplement IV. New York: Scribners, 1997. 521-40.

 

Fiction

“Closing the Barn Door.” Saranac Review, Summer 2007.

 

"The Widow Boddington." American Literary Review, Spring 2007.

"Shadows." Green Mountains Review. XIX.1, 2006.           

 “Ice Fishing.” Blueline. Spring 2004.

 

Forthcoming:

 “Parties.” Southern Indiana Review, 2008.

 

Editorship

Coeditor of LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory. A Routledge journal published by

Taylor and Francis. With Regina Barreca of the University of Connecticut.

 

Conference Presentations

“’Beautiful Creatures’: The Ethics of Female Beauty in du Maurier’s Fiction.” 

            Daphne du Maurier International Centenary Conference. Fowey,

            Cornwall, UK. May 2007.

 

"Reforming Beauty in Brontë’s Shirley." Victorians Institute: Gender and Reform.         

Converse College, Spartanburg, SC. October, 2006.

 

            “'To defy her very self': Narrating Beauty in Dombey and Son." Narrative: An

International Conference. Ottawa, Canada. April, 2006.

 

“Policing The Whirlpool: Gissing, Gender, and Narrative.” Narrative: an

International Conference. Louisville, Kentucky. April, 2005.

 

“‘Children of the Street’: The Construction of Gender in Gissing’s London.”

 Gissing & the City: The Centenary Conference. Institute of English

 Studies, University of London. July, 2003.

 

“‘So the romance in her life was over’: George Gissing and the Collapse of the

Victorian Marriage Plot.”  Northeast Modern Language Association. March, 2003.

 

“‘Misery Nobly Borne’: George Gissing's Gendering of Class Conflict.” Victorian

 Studies Graduate Student Conference, New York University.  February,

1999.

 

            “Civilizing the Female Imagination in Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte

Brontë.”  10th Annual Women and Gender Conference, University of Connecticut. April, 1998.

 

“Suburban Bliss: The Domestication of Women and Workers in Elizabeth

Gaskell's Mary Barton.” Victorian Studies Graduate Conference, New York University. February, 1996.

 

Scheduled Conference:

“Representing Beauty: The Ethics of Opposition in Victorian Fashion Plates.”

NAVSA/VSAWC. University of Victoria, British Columbia. Oct. 10-13, 2007.

 

Work in Progress

Winter People, a collection of linked short stories. Under revision for agent.

Reforming Beauty, a book project examining representations of feminine beauty in the English novel, with an emphasis on the Victorian period, investigating the relationship between beauty, ethics, feminine subjectivity, and narrative.

 

Awards and Honors

           LRC Faculty Research Grant—funded research at the British Library for a project

entitled “Subversive Beauty and the Divided Self in Victorian Fashion Plates.” (Summer 2006)

Finalist, Ohio State University Short Fiction Award. 2004.

Finalist, Spokane Prize. Eastern Washington University's book-length short story competition. 2004.

            

Teaching Experience

 

University of West Georgia, 2004-

ENGL 1102 Composition (Spring 2007)

ENGL 2120H Honors British Literature Survey (Fall 2004, Spring 2006, Fall 2007)

ENGL 2120 British Literature Survey (Fall 2005)

ENGL 2190 Survey of Literature by Women (Fall 2004)

ENGL 2300 Practical Criticism: Research and Methodology (Fall 2004, Fall 2006)

ENGL 3200 Introduction to Creative Writing (Fall 2006)

ENGL 4106 Genre: Fiction (Spring 2005, Fall 2005, Fall 2007)

ENGL 4109 Film as Literature: The 19th-Century Novel on Film (Summer 2005, Spring 2007)

ENGL 4130 Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Fall 2005)

ENGL 4145 Victorian Literature (Fall 2006, Spring 2005)

ENGL 4188 Major Author: Virginia Woolf (Summer 2007)

ENGL 4381: Victorian Literature on Film (2 separate independent studies, Spring 2006)

ENGL 4381: Creative Writing: Fiction and Creative Nonfiction (Fall 2006)

ENGL 6115 Repression and Reform in the Victorian Social-Problem Novel: Graduate Seminar (Spring 2006)

 

University of Connecticut, 1993-2002.

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century British Literature. Fall, 2002.

Literature and Composition. Fall, 2001.

Modern British Literature. Fall, 1998.

Literature and Composition. 8 sections, 1994-1998.

Composition. 6 sections, 1993-1997.

.

 

 

Academic Service, selected

University

University Senate (Spring 2006)

Graduate Research Award Committee (Spring 2006)

 

Department of English

18th Century British Literature Search Committee (Fall 2006-Spring 2007)

Graduate Program Committee (Fall 2006-Spring 2007) 

Chair, Graduate Program Committee (Fall 20005-Spring 2006)

Creative Nonfiction Search Committee (Fall 2004-Spring 2005)

Program Review Subcommittee (Fall 2004-Spring 2005.

Co-Adviser, Sigma Tau Delta (Fall 2005-Spring 2007)

 

Other Contributions to Academic Community

Faculty Works in Progress Talk: Presented and discussed with faculty colleagues an early         

version of my Victorians Institute Conference presentation.

Sigma Tau Delta Benefit Reading for the Carroll County Soup Kitchen. Featured Reader,

faculty organizer.

Graduate School Information Session. Participated in Panel sponsored by Sigma Tau

Delta (Fall 2006, Spring 2006).

Observed and consulted with first-year writing instructor Crystal Shelnutt.

Arms and Letters Conference sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages.

Fiction Panel (Fall 2005)

Atlanta Gallery Project: Presenter and member of organizing committee for “An Evening

of Creative Writing,” sponsored by the Department of English (Fall 2005)

Invited Speaker: "Pushing Sisyphus's Boulder: Experiences of a First Year Assistant

Professor." University of Connecticut. English Graduate Student Alliance's

Professional Development Lecture Series (March 2005)

Shadow Day: A local middle school student attended my classes and solicited ideas and

advice about a career as a teacher and writer.

Served on committee formed by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures to

evaluate the future of  JAISA: Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Arts (Spring 2005)

Spoke on guest panel In Dr. Rob Snyder’s publishing class (Nov. 2004)

 

Academic Affiliations

 

Modern Language Association

North American Victorian Studies Association

Victorians Institute

Associated Writing Programs

Society for the Study of Narrative Literature