Bio

Raised in northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., I received my B.A. in English from Dartmouth College and my M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt I specialized in Victorian literature, aesthetic culture, and gender and sexuality. In 2013, I chose to forego a teaching career to pursue nonprofit work and archival research.

My partner, Matt Duquès, and I have lived in many places—Nashville, TN; Fargo, ND; Florence, AL; and Philadelphia, PA—during our journey through and beyond academia. In Alabama, I gave birth to and cared for our two babies while learning the nonprofit world and launching the literary historical investigation that evolved into my rape culture book. Matt taught Early American literature at the University of North Alabama, where he received tenure in 2019. We established The Fringe Foundation during our years as new parents with new jobs in new places.

In 2019, Matt sacrificed his tenured position so we could move to Philadelphia to raise our children closer to our families and to revive the Penn Book Center, an independent bookstore that had served the University of Pennsylvania community since 1962. We devoted a year of our lives to bringing PBC back to life before Covid-19 upended our plans. The bookstore closed in the summer of 2020.

My main writing project, Schools of Love, interweaves my own story of childhood sexual trauma and recovery with the story of how Ovid’s ancient rape poetry, especially his Art of Love and Pygmalion myth, influenced western (rape) culture for two millennia. I have spent over ten years tracing this history, prioritizing scope and public impact over speed and specialization. The first piece from this manuscript, “Rape Culture, A Literary History from Ovid to Shakespeare,” will appear in the New Rape Studies, a collection of essays co-edited by Michael Dango, Erin Spampinato, and Doreen Thierauf. Meanwhile, I am working with Nora Gilbert (University of North Texas) and Tara MacDonald (University of Idaho) to produce Victorian Gaslighting, a volume of essays that uncovers the nineteenth-century roots of gaslighting.

The joys that sustain me when I’m not mothering, researching, writing, or editing are baking, doing yoga, designing interior spaces, and being by the ocean. I also love reading poetry by Donika Kelly and personal essays by Deanna Kreisel.

Photo by Jonene Nelson, Owner of No Name Gallery