Research & Education

As a researcher I am a literary and cultural scholar fascinated with the ways we react to and affect the world around us. I am especially interested in disaster and post-apocalyptic stories; the interactions between science, technology, and culture; multimedia storytelling; methods of narrativizing research; the rhetorical and cultural implications of space exploration; graphic narratives; and popular culture.

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As a literary scholar I specialize in Comparative Literature, particularly 20th-21st century literature of the Americas. I love literature of the Latin American Boom, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges, among many others, as well as Latin American woman writers such as Luisa Valenzuela, Rosario Ferre, and others. Genres I study and enjoy include memoir, magical realism, science fiction and fantasy, mystery, and novels that play with the relationship between history and memory - such as those of William Faulkner and Willa Cather.

 

Other favorite authors include Ursula K. LeGuin, Murakami Haruki, Philip K. Dick, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Some of my favorite cartoonists are Tezuka Osamu, Gene Luen Yang, Tillie Warden, Rina Ayuyang, Marcela Trujillo, GB Tran, and Lynda Barry. I am also a huge fan of the animation of Miyasaki Hayao.