Department of English Language & Literature

Education

• Ph.D., Fordham University, English and American Literature
  
• Ed.S., Indiana University, Language Education/English Education
  
• B.A. , University of Notre Dame, English and Philosophy

Interests and Expertise

Eastern Experts Link for Media and Interviews

I am Professor of English Education and American Literature in the Department of English Language and Literature as well as Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies.   From 2020-2022, I served as Associate Dean of The Honors College at Eastern Michigan University.  In January 2024, I began my term as Co-Editor of JNT: The Journal of Narrative Theory.

I am the 2017 recipient of the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching at Eastern Michigan University, and I was the Institutional Winner for Eastern Michigan for the 2020 MAC Outstanding Faculty Award for Student Success.

My scholarly and teaching interests frequently overlap, focusing on English teacher education, literature pedagogy, local literature, American women writers, and multi-modalities in literacy education. In Fall 2025, I will be on sabbatical to pursued some of those intersections for the book project,  Narrative Dis/appearing Acts and Interpretive Dis/closures in Kate Chopin’s Fiction.

A past co-director of the National Writing Project site at Eastern Michigan (EMWP), I have been involved with local and national teacher research networks for close to 20 years, most recently to support site-based teacher research and teacher inquiry groups in southeast Michigan.

I am author of Deranging English/Education:  Teacher Inquiry, Literary Studies, and Hybrid Visions of ‘English’ for 21st-century Schools (NCTE, 2008), co-editor of the book Teaching the Literature Survey Course, (WVU Press, 2018), and author of numerous articles and chapters on Teaching English Education, Kate Chopin, and American regionalism.

Courses

 Undergraduate Courses

• LITR 100 Worlds on the Page: Introduction to Literature
• LITR 101 Imaginary Worlds: Introduction to Fiction
• LITR 103 All the World's a Stage: Introduction to Drama
• LITR 105 Mythologies in Literature:  Greek, Roman, Norse
• UNIV 179L3 Exploring the University Experience
• WRTG 121 Composition II: Researching the Public Experience
• LITR 200 Literary Studies for Literature Lovers
• LITR 200 Reading Local Literature in a Global Age (First Year Seminar/G)
• WGST 202 Introduction to Gender and Sexuality
• CASI 206 Cultures of the Holocaust
• ENGL 300W Writing about Literature
• LITR 309 Development of American Literature
• ENGL 408W Writing for Secondary Teachers
• ENGL 409 Teaching English in the Secondary Schools
• LITR/WGST 443 Women in Literature
• LITR 479 Forging/Mastering Pedagogies for Teaching Art and Literature

Graduate Courses

• ENGL 518 Topics in English Education
• ENGL 530 Issues in English Studies for Teachers
• LITR 523 American Realism and Naturalism
• WGST 543 Women in Literature
• LITR/WGST 592 19th Century American Women Writers
• LITR 569 American Renaissance
• LITR 585 Literature for Teachers
• Reading Dangerously: Teaching Controversial Literature
• World Literature for Teachers
• Visualizing Pedagogies: Art and Literature
• Pedagogical and Aesthetic Designs for Art and Literature
• Teaching Local Literatures in a Global Age: Regions of Pedagogical Practice

Publications and Presentations

• "Narrative and Pedagogical Dis/Appearing Acts: (Im)material Resources for the Study of American Women Writers." Society for the Study of American Women Writers.  Philadelphia (forthcoming, November 2025)
• “Narrative Chance, Cinematic Choices, and Visions of a ‘True Self’ in Film Adaptations of Chopin.”  American Literature Association Conference.  Boston (May 2025).
• "Likely and Impossible Serializations:  (Re) Constructing Artifacts for Real and Imaginary Archives" College English Association Annual Conference.  Philadelphia (March 2025)
• ‘Getting Away from Literature’:  Pedagogical Experiments in (Re-)Serializing fin de siècle American Women's Writing for 21st Century Students.  Students in the Archives:  Archival Pedagogy in Practice, Eds.  Heather Fox and Amanda Stuckey.  (University of Illinois Press, Forthcoming 2026).
• "Impossible Migrations and Flights of Fancy in the Literature of New France—Champlain’s ‘oiseau étrange’ and the Importance of Getting Lost in the (Interdisciplinary) Woods." Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada/L’Association pour la littérature, l'environnement et la cultureau Canada.  Waterloo, Ontario (June 2024).
• "Zombie Chopin—What to Do with Bad Ideas and Undead Interpretations of Chopin. "  American Literature Association Conference.  Chicago (May 2024).
• "What’s in Mrs. Sommers’ Wallet? Or, Learning to Live on $15 a Day—Doing the (Archival) Math to Investigate Inflation, Consumption, and Gendered Labor in Chopin’s 'A Pair of Silk Stockings.'” College English Association Annual Conference.  Atlanta (March 2024).
• “Emma Lazarus and the Many Lives of the ‘Mother of Exiles.’”  The US and the Holocaust.  College of Arts and Sciences Lecture Series.  October 13, 2022. (Co-Panelist)

• “Quick, Dead, and Widowed:  Failed Reading of ‘Unwholesome Intellectual Sweets’ and the Importance of Knowing Whose Story You’re In.” In Heather Ostman, ed. The New View from Cane River: Critical Essays on Kate Chopin's At Fault.(Baton Rouge:  LSU Press, July 2022).

• “White Women; Black Hair—Or, Some Problems in Representation and Refiguration in Teaching Kate Chopin.” American Literature Association Conference.  Chicago, IL (May 26-29, 2022).

• Panel Chair/Moderator, “New Approaches to Kate Chopin’s Fiction.” American Literature Association Conference.  Chicago, IL (May 26-29, 2022).
• Roundtable Chair/Moderator, “Teaching Kate Chopin’s Works in Difficult Contexts.”  American Literature Association Conference.  Chicago, IL (May 26-29, 2022).
• “‘Getting Away from Literature’:  Pedagogical Experiments in (Re-) Serializing Wharton and Chopin for 21st Century Students.”  Edith Wharton Society Conference.  New York, NY (June 18-20, 2020).

• Roundtable Organizer & Panelist/Presenter.  “The Essential Chopin:  Stories that Continue to Shape the Genre.” Sponsored by The Kate Chopin International Society.  American Literature Association Symposium:  The American Short Story.  New Orleans, LA (September 7-9, 2019).

• Teaching the Literature Survey Course: New Approaches for College Faculty. Co-edited with James M. Lang and Gwynn Dujardin. West Virginia University Press, 2018.  Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Series.
• "Re-Visioning the American Literature Survey for Teachers and Other Wide-Awake Humans." In Gwynn Dujardin, James M. Lang and John A. Staunton, eds. Teaching the Literature Survey Course: New Approaches for College Faculty. Morgantown: West Virginia UP, 2018.
• “Unsettling Prospects for English/Education:  Imagining the Future Student in a Teacherless Landscape.” (ADE sponsored panel).  Modern Language Association.  Boston, MA.  January 2013.
• "'Making death less terrible': Alice Cary's Regionalist Aesthetics in Clovernook." In Dennis Berthold and Lingui Yang, eds. Alice Cary Studies. A Dual language English/Chinese critical edition and Chinese translation of Alice Cary's Clovernook: Or, Recollections of Our Neighborhood in the West [1852, 1853]. Shanghai, 2012.
• Deranging English/Education: Teacher Inquiry, Literary Studies, and Hybrid Visions of "English" for 21st Century Schools. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2008.
• "A Miracle of Catfish and the Recursions of Art." In Jean W. Cash and Keith Perry, eds. Larry Brown and the Blue-Collar South. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2008.
• " 'I was messed up from the start': The Shape of Critical Literacy in Student Writing Histories." Journal of Teaching Writing. 24.2 (2008): 45–78. [Published 2009]
• "Shadowing Grace in the 'Post-Southern' South: 'A Roadside Resurrection' and Larry Brown's Narratives of Witness,"Religion & Literature 33.2 (Spring 2001): 43–74.
• "Kate Chopin's 'One Story': Casting a Shadowy Glance on the Ethics of Regionalism,"Studies in American Fiction 28.2 (Fall 2000): 203–34. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism 68 (2004): 248–63.

Advising

To set up an appointment, please email: [email protected]

Selected Professional Service

• Advisory board, Kate Chopin International Society.
• Advisory board, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, series (West Virginia University Press)

Additional Information

LinkedIn Contact/John Staunton