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Klages, Mary

Associate Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • Dr. Klages' research focuses on the social constructions and representations of bodies in 19th century American culture. An expert on gender and disability studies in Victorian American culture, she is currently working on a project on the intersections of sexuality and disability in institutional discourses in 19th c. Massachusetts.

keywords

  • nineteenth century American literature and culture, disability studies, gender studies, queer studies in literature, literary theory

Publications

selected publications

Teaching

courses taught

  • ENGL 1260 - Introduction to Women's Literature
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018
    Introduces literature by women in England and America. Covers both poetry and fiction and varying historical periods. Acquaints students with the contribution of women writers to the English literary tradition and investigates the nature of this contribution. Same as WGST 1260.
  • ENGL 1270 - Introduction to American Literature by Women
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Fall 2021 / Spring 2023
    This course investigates how literature by women has shaped the United States over time, from Indigenous authors, to abolitionists, to suffragists, to feminists of various waves. With attention to intersections between class, race, and sexual orientation, students will consider what it has meant and still means to be a woman writer in the United States and will explore how women have engaged, subverted, and resisted ideas about gender. Same as WGST 1270.
  • ENGL 1290 - Crime, Policing, Detection
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2022 / Fall 2022 / Fall 2023
    Explores stories about crime and policing, deviance and detection, law and order. Students will learn how genres such as detective or crime fiction or police procedurals narrate anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality. Analyzes how categories of innocence and guilt, justice and punishment, are imagined and portrayed in short stories, films, novels, and TV shows.
  • ENGL 2112 - Introduction to Literary Theory
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019
    This course introduces students to a wide range of critical theories essential to the study of literature. Critical theories have broad applications because they provide ways to interpret all cultural products, including visual arts, music, and writing. We will investigate some of the major movements relevant to literary studies, which may include, for example, cultural studies, structuralism, feminisms, ecocriticism, critical race theories, postmodern theory, media theories, etc.
  • ENGL 2707 - Introduction to Queer Literature
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2020 / Spring 2022 / Fall 2022 / Fall 2023
    How is literature shaped by cultural understandings of queer and non-normative genders and sexualities? How does it, in turn, shape those understandings? This class explores how genders, sexualities, and writing intersect with issues of race, class, nation, ability, and empire. Readings may include novels, short stories, poetry, graphic novels, films, essays, blogs, and more. Same as LGBT 2707.
  • ... more

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