Current
Director, Speech & Debate, University of Houston, 2016 – Present
Instructional Assistant Professor, The Honors College, University of Houston, 2018 – Present
Board of Directors, Houston Urban Debate League, 2018 – Present
Education
Ph.D., English, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, 2012
B.A., Honors English and Creative Writing, New York University, 2003
Areas of Specialization
Argumentation & debate; rhetoric; humanities; early American rhetoric & literature; American sentimental and women’s novels; slave narratives and African American literature; aesthetics; critical theory, including poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, and queer theory
Publications
“Melville Among the Heathens: Religion, Race, and Representation in the South Seas,” Visionary of the Word: Melville and Religion, Eds. Brian Yothers & Jonathan Cook, Northwestern UP, 2017.
“From Sovereignty to Ethopoiesis: Literature, Aesthetics, and New Forms of Life,” The Comparatist 36 (2012): 86-106.
Dissertation
“Aesthetics, Slavery, and Sentiment: The Discourses and Practices of Mastery in the American Renaissance.” Professors Tim Dean (Chair), Robert Daly, and William Solomon.
Fellowships & Honors
Lerner Family Faculty Fellowship Award, UH Honors College, 2022
Wong Faculty Engagement Award, UH Honors College, 2020
Human Situation Lecture Award, “Sphragidonychargokomētai; Or, Measuring the Gnat’s Anus” (Aristophanes’ The Clouds), UH Honors College, Fall 2018
Dean’s Service Award, UH Honors College, 2018
Outstanding Lecture Award, “Slavery as Humanism,” UH Honors College, Spring 2014
Inaugural Department of English Dissertation Fellow, SUNY Buffalo, Fall 2009 – Spring 2010
SUNY Buffalo Presidential Fellow, Fall 2005 – Spring 2009
SUNY Buffalo Composition Syllabus Prize, Honorable Mention, 2009
Cross Examination Debate Association National Champion, 2003
University of Houston Courses
The Human Situation, Fall 2013 – Present
Debating Legal Policy, Fall 2022, UH
Debating Domestic Policy, Fall 2021, UH
Debating Space City, Spring 2020, UH
Leadership & Mass Psychology, Fall 2017 & Spring 2021, UH
Radical Leadership in the 19th Century: Abolition and Suffrage, Spring 2019
Other Courses
Composition and Rhetoric I & II, 2013, Lone Star College
Writing Composition, Fall 2005 – Spring 2010, University at Buffalo
Literary Types: Science Fiction, Fall 2009, University at Buffalo
Academic Employment
Faculty, Various national debate institutes (NYU, Emory, University of Texas), 2000 – 2019
Lecturer, The Honors College, University of Houston, 2013 – 2018
Interim Director, Speech & Debate, University of Houston, 2016 – 2017
Assistant Debate Coach, University of Houston, 2013 – 2016
Assistant Debate Coach, Harvard University, 2006 – 2015
Adjunct Professor, Lone Star College, 2013
Instructor, University at Buffalo, SUNY, 2005 – 2010
Writer in Residence, Just Buffalo Literary Center, Spring 2007
Assistant Debate Coach, Emory University, 2003 – 2004
Service
Honors Co-Curricular Committee,University of Houston, Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
Honors College Huddle, Speech & Debate, University of Houston, Fall 2016 – Present
Service Learning Committee, University of Houston, Fall 2016 – Spring 2017
Awards Subcommittee, Best Human Situation Essay Prize, University of Houston, 2016 – 2017
Curriculum Subcommittee, “The Human Situation,” University of Houston, 2013
Organizer, “Antebellum Affects: Literature & Theory,” MLA 2014
Organizer, “Nineteenth-Century American Sentiment, Radical or Otherwise,” MLA 2012
Ad Hoc By-Laws Committee, Department of English, SUNY Buffalo, 2007
Public Appearances
Houston Matters, “Houston Teacher Wins World Championship of Public Speaking”, Houston Public Radio 88.7, October 9, 2018
Houston Matters, “What Advice Would Houston Debaters Have For the Presidential Candidates?”, Houston Public Radio 88.7, September 21, 2016
Conference Presentations
Chair & Respondent, “Topographies of Violence and Desire: Race and Urban Space.” National Communication Association Annual Convention, Las Vegas, NV, November 19-22, 2015
“Making Universality: Human Rights, Performance, and Archive Fever in Early American Literature.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, March 19-22, 2015
“The Animal Magnetism of Sentiment: Novels and Imaginary Capture.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, January 9–12, 2014.
“The Clinic of Literature: Foucault, Deleuze, and Psychoanalysis.” Intensities and Lines of Flight: Deleuze and Guattari and the Arts, King’s University College, London, Ontario, May 4-6, 2012.
Organizer & Respondent, “Nineteenth-Century American Sentiment, Radical or Otherwise.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Seattle, WA, January 5-8, 2012.
“An Archaeology of Slave Management: From ‘The State of War Continued’ to ‘No More Beautiful Picture of Human Society’.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Los Angeles, CA, January 6-9, 2011.
“Sinthome, Writing, Rhizome: New Forms of Life.” University of Massachusetts-Boston VII Annual Social Theory Forum conference on “Critical Social Theory: Freud & Lacan for the 21st Century,” Boston, MA, April 7-8, 2010.
“Science Fiction & Sexuality: Le Guin, Butler, Delany and the Limits of Transgression.” SUNY Buffalo Gender Institute, Gender Across Borders conference on “Globalisms,” Buffalo, NY, April 2-3, 2010.
“The Other Side of the Screen: Jonathan Coe’s The Winshaw Legacy and the Question of Simulation.” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, Princeton, March 23-26, 2006.
Research & Editorial
Editorial Committee, Umbr(a): A Journal of the Unconscious, 2007 – 2010
Editorial Board, Theory@Buffalo, 2005 – 2010
Research Assistant, Professor Carrie Bramen, SUNY Buffalo, Fall 2007 – Spring 2008
Absalom, Absalom! 