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Denise Kendall Comer University Writing Program/CTLW Box 90025, Duke University Durham, North Carolina 27708-0025 (919) 660-44347; comerd@duke.edu CURRENT POSITION Postdoctoral Mellon Writing Fellow, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing, Duke University, 2000-present. Courses Designed and Taught: When Cultures Clash When Cultures Intersect Identity and Nationalism(s) in American Autobiography (Dis)Respectability in Victorian Literature EDUCATION Ph.D., English, August 1999 University of South Carolina, Columbia Major Field: Nineteenth-Century British Literature Minor Field: Composition and Rhetoric Dissertation: "Fictions of Empire: British Women's Travel Narratives in India, 1779-1854," directed by William B. Thesing Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies, 1998 University of South Carolina, Columbia M.A., English, 1995 University of Maryland, College Park B.A., English, Magna Cum Laude, 1993 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg PUBLICATIONS "Helen Lady Dufferin, Countess of Gifford." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 199. Ed. William B. Thesing. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. "‘White child is good, black child his [or her] slave': Children, Women, and Empire in Early Nineteenth-Century India." Under Consideration by Nineteeenth-Century Contexts. PRESENTATIONS "Celebrating the Imperial Hearth: Bessie Sinclair Fenton's Journal of Mrs. Fenton," Southern Conference on British Studies (SCBS), November 16-19, 2001. "Travel Narration by the 19th-Century Memsahib: Constructing Fantasies of Englishness and Perpetuating Empire via the Domestic," Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA), Portland State University, November 5-7, 1999. "‘White child is good, black child is slave': Constructions of Children in the Travel Narratives of Early Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Indian Women," Modern Language Association (MLA), San Francisco, December 27-30, 1998. "Negotiating Between Sympathy and Subjectification: Romantic Women Travelers in India," American Conference on Romanticism (ACR), University of Santa Barbara, October 16-18, 1998. "Ethnographic Travel Writing in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Redefining Nineteenth-Century ‘Travel Writing' as ‘Ethnography,'" Snapshots From Abroad: A Conference on American and British Travel Writers and Writing, University of Minnesota, November 14-16, 1997. "The ‘Paradox of Cookery': Latent Anorexia in Romantic Women's Poetry," North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR), Boston University, November 14-16, 1996. "Reconsidering Jane Austen: An Imperialist Agenda," Carolinas Symposium on British Studies (CSBS), Coastal Carolinas University, South Carolina, October 4-6, 1996. "Hybridity on the Stage: Matthew G. Lewis and Romantic Drama" and Session Organizer, "Romantic Drama: Out of the Closet," Philological Association of the Carolinas (PAC), Winthrop University, South Carolina, March 15, 1996. PREVIOUS TEACHING EXPERIENCE Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1999-2000. Instructor, Women's Studies, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1999-present. Instructor, Department of English, California State University, Chico, 1998-1999. Instructor, Department of Language Arts and Humanities, Butte Community College, Oroville, California, 1998-1999. Instructor, Department of English, Coker College, Fort Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina, 1998. Instructor, Evening School, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1997. Group Facilitator, Writing Studio, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1997. The Writing Studio is an alternative to basic-skills English and provides writing instruction in a small-group workshop setting. Teaching Assistant, Department of English, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1995-1998. Courses Designed and Taught: Themes in British Literature English Composition Technical Writing British Literature, 1750-present British Literature, 1837-1900 Reading and Composition Business Writing Introduction to the Short Story Literature and Composition Basic Writing Women in Western Culture Advanced Composition Academic Writing Courses Assisted: Graduate Course on Teaching Composition (1999): model teacher; provided a semester-long, on-line teaching log, opened my classroom for daily observation, and guest lectured. Graduate Seminar on Non-Fiction Victorian Prose (1998, 1999): guest lecturer on women's travel writing and Mary Kingsley's Travels in West Africa. Themes in British Literature (1998): weekly discussion leader; guest lecturer on empire in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. PROFESSIONAL WRITING / EDITING Copyeditor, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, 2000-present. Writing Consultant, Self-Employed, Columbia, South Carolina, 1999-2000. Provide consulting services on writing and job hunting. Research Assistant, Professor Steven Lynn, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1996. Edited the University of South Carolina's 1996 Student's Guide to Freshman English and obtained copyright permissions for Steven Lynn's Reading, Writing, and Literature. Manager and Marketing Associate, Management Concepts, Inc., Vienna, Virginia. (Management Concepts provides training courses for the public and private sectors in management, financial management, acquisitions, and computers.) Manager, Book Catalog, 1994-1995: promoted after one year to initiate, direct, and publish an annual book catalog featuring business and professional titles. I selected titles for inclusion; wrote and edited summary descriptions; hired and supervised design team, printer, and mailing house; and developed and maintained accounts with over fifty publishers nationwide. Marketing Associate, 1993-1994: wrote and edited course materials, catalogues, correspondence, proposals, and marketing brochures. Intern, Price Waterhouse, Washington, DC and Falls Church, Virginia, Summers 1990, 1991. Wrote and published an internal document, "Instruction Manual for Acquiring Bankruptcy Litigation Cases." PROFESSIONAL SERVICE Writing Evaluator, Duke University Writing Program, Durham, North Carolina, 2001. Search Committee, Duke University Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing, Durham, North Carolina, 2000-2001. English Education Committee, California State University, Chico, 1998-1999. Writing Evaluator, South Carolina Writing Assessment Project, Institutional Planning and Research, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1997, 1998. Freshman English Committee, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1996-1997. Co-Chair, Graduate English Association, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1996-1997. Volunteer, English Second Language Program, Springfield Estates Elementary, Springfield, Virginia, 1989. HONORS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND GRANTS Mellon Fellowship, Duke University, 2001-2003 Duke Postdoctoral Fellowship in Teaching Writing, 2000-2001 Model teacher for graduate-level teaching assistants, California State University, Chico, 1999 CELT Small Grant for Instruction, 1998 Distinction on Ph.D. Written and Oral Comprehensive Examinations, 1997 James A. Morris Carolina Fellowship, 1995-1996 REFERENCES Professor Joseph Harris, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing, Duke University Professor Van Hillard, University Writing Program, Duke University Professor Tom Fox, Department of English, California State University, Chico Professor Judith Rodby, Department of English, California State University, Chico Professor William B. Thesing, Department of English, University of South Carolina Professor Lynn Weber, Women's Studies, University of South Carolina