Alyson J. Kiesel

  • Ruth Maxwell Distinguished Professor of English; Professor of English
    Email Address:
    akiesel@carthage.edu
    Office location:
    LH 309
    Phone
    262-551-6057

    Alyson Kiesel specializes in nineteenth-century British Literature. She earned a B.A. in English from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from New York University.

    Before coming to Carthage, Professor Kiesel was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at New York University, where she taught in the English Department and in the Core Curriculum.

    Her research and teaching interests include the Victorian novel and the entwined histories of science and literary realism. She regularly teaches Introduction to Literary Studies, British Literary Traditions II, Literature in Its Time II: “Victorians Gone Wild,” and the Senior Thesis Seminar. She also teaches courses on Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Critical Theory.

    Professor Kiesel is currently at work on a long-term project studying representations of natural historical pursuits (like aquarium-keeping, insect-collecting, and botanical drawing) in Victorian fictions. She recently received a Faculty Research and Development Grant to continue this research in Britain. She joined the Carthage faculty in 2011.

    • B.A. — English, Amherst College
    • Ph.D. — English Language and Literature, New York University
    • ENG 1160 Introduction to Literary Studies
    • ENG 2030 British Literary Traditions II
    • ENG 3020 Literature in Its Time II “The Country and the City”
    • ENG 3020 Literature in Its Time II “Victorians Gone Wild”
    • ENG 3070 Film and Literature: “Sensational Fictions”
    • ENG 3140 Studies in Genre: “The Novel”
    • ENG 3140 Studies in Genre: “The Short Story”
    • ENG 3160 Studies in a Major Author after 1800: “Charles Dickens”
    • ENG 3160 Studies in a Major Author after 1800: “George Eliot”
    • ENG 3030 Major Texts in Critical Theory
    • ENG 4100 Senior Seminar
    • COR 1100 The Intellectual History of Western Heritage I

    Publication

    • “Meaning and Misinterpretation in Cranford.” ELH, 71.4 (Winter 2004) 1001-1017.

    Presentations

    • “‘Dabbling in Science’: Professionals and Amateurs in Heart and Science.” To be presented at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, annual meeting, Santa Fe, NM, October, 2015
    • “Age of Aquaria: Philip Henry Gosse in Victorian Fictions.” Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States, annual meeting, California State University, Fullerton, CA, October, 2014
    • “‘This nice little toad’: Aquariums and Inheritance in No Name.” Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, annual meeting, Boise, ID, October, 2014
    • “‘Abstraction and Recognition’: Managing the Evidence in Dombey and Son.” North American Victorian Studies Association, annual meeting, University of Southern California, Pasadena, October, 2013
    • “‘A Little More Play’: Allegory in ‘The Haunted Man’ and Hard Times.” North American Victorian Studies Association, annual meeting, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, November, 2011
    • “‘To Take the Place of Reality’: Memory as Pathology in Mary Barton.” Presented (in absentia), North American Victorian Studies Association and Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada, joint conference, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, October, 2007
    • “Mermaids in Manchester: Nostalgia in Mary Barton.” Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United Statues, annual meeting, University of Colorado, Boulder, October, 2007
    • “The Body Vanishes: Pro-Commodity Writing and Ruskin’s Aesthetics.” Northeast Modern Language Association, annual meeting, Temple University, Philadelphia, March, 2006
    • “Obsessions, Habits, and Hobbies in He Knew He Was Right.” North American Victorian Studies Association, annual meeting, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, October, 2005