CV

Melissa Bradshaw, Ph.D

mbradshaw@luc.edu

Education

Ph.D. in English, with a certificate in Women’s Studies, State University of New York at Stony Brook, August 2000

M.A. in English, Brigham Young University, August 1994

B.A. in English, Brigham Young University, August 1992

Employment

Writing Program Director, Loyola University Chicago, 2022-

Writing Across the Curriculum Coordinator, Loyola University Chicago, 2014-2022

Senior Lecturer and Associate Graduate Faculty, English Department, Loyola University Chicago, 2010-present

Advanced Lecturer and Associate Graduate Faculty, English Department, Loyola University Chicago, 2014-2018

Lecturer and Associate Graduate Faculty, English Department, Loyola University Chicago, 2010-2014

Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, DePaul University, 2004 to 2010

Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities, Barat College of DePaul University, 2002 to 2004

Postdoctoral Fellow, English Department, SUNY at Stony Brook, 2000-2002

Publications

Books:

Editor, “this need to dance / this need to kneel”: Denise Levertov and the Poetics of Faith, with Michael P. Murphy. Wipf and Stock, 2019.

Amy Lowell: Diva Poet. Ashgate Press, December 2011. Winner of the MLA Book Prize for Independent Scholars, 2011.

Editor, Amy Lowell, American Modern: Critical Essays, with Adrienne Munich. Rutgers University Press, March 2004.   

Editor, Selected Poems of Amy Lowell, with Adrienne Munich.  Rutgers University Press, November 2002.

Journal Issues Edited

Guest Editor, Feminist Modernist Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (October, 2021), Special Issue, “Feminist Modernist Dance,” co-edited with Jessica Ray Herzogenrath.

Guest Editor, Feminist Modernist Studies, Vol. 5, Issue 3 (November, 2022), Special Issue, “Feminist Modernist Dance, II,” co-edited with Jessica Ray Herzogenrath.

Articles and Book Chapters

“Fantasies of Belonging, Fears of Precarity.” Women Making Modernism. Ed. Erica Delsandro. University Press of Florida, 2020, 157-173.

“Wheelpolitik: The Moral and Aesthetic Project of Edith Sitwell’s Wheels, 1916-1921.” Women, Periodicals, and Print Culture in Britain, 1890s-1920s: the Modernist Period. Ed. Faith Binckes and Carey Snyder. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, 329-341.

“The Apotheosis of Edith”: Artifice and Noblesse Oblige in Cecil Beaton’s Portraits of the Sitwell Siblings.” The Many Facades of Edith Sitwell. Ed. Allan Pero and Gyllian Phillips. University Press of Florida, 2017, 54-74.

“Lady Macbeth Goes to Hollywood: Edith Sitwell’s 1950-1951 American Tour.” Modernism/modernity, Volume 23, No. 1, (January 2016), 23-27.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay.” A Companion to Modernist Poetry. Ed. Gail McDonald and David E. Chinitz. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, 474-484.

“Performing Greenwich Village Bohemianism,” Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York, ed. Cyrus R.K. Patell and Bryan Waterman. New York: Cambridge University Press, May 2010, 146-159.

“Devouring the Diva: Martyrdom as Feminist Backlash in The Rose.” Camera Obscura, 67, Volume 23, No. 1 (Spring 2008), 69-87. 

 “Remembering Amy Lowell: Embodiment, Obesity, and the Construction of a Persona,” Amy Lowell, American Modern: Critical Essays.  Rutgers University Press. March, 2004, 167-185.

Introduction (with Adrienne Munich). Amy Lowell, American Modern: Critical Essays. Rutgers University Press. March, 2004, XI-XXVI.

“‘Let us shout it lustily’: Amy Lowell’s Career in Context.” Introduction to Selected Poems of Amy Lowell.  Rutgers University Press.  November 2002, XV-XXVI.

“Outselling the Modernisms of Men: Amy Lowell and the Art of Self-Commodification,” Victorian Poetry, Volume 38, No. 1 (Spring 2000), 141-169.

Encyclopedia and Anthology Entries

“Revaluing America’s First Diva Poet, Amy Lowell.” 20th and 21st Centuries in American Literature. Edited by Mary Pat Brady. Gale Researcher. Gale, 2016.

“Amy Lowell,” Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature, eds. Jackson R. Bryer and Paul Lauter. New York: Oxford University Press, Spring 2014. (Peer-reviewed bibliographic article in academic database.)

“Amy Lowell,” Wadsworth/Thomson Anthology of American Literature, 1910-1945, ed. Martha Cutter, Boston: Wadsworth, Thomson Learning, Inc., 2010.  Wrote head note, selected and edited Lowell poems.  

“On ‘The Weather-Cock Points South,’” “On ‘Madonna of the Evening Flowers’,” “On ‘Opal,’” Anthology of Modern American Poetry website, ed. Cary Nelson. 2000. www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/amylowell.

“Amy Lowell,” The Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, ed. Eric Haralson, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001, pp. 412-414.

Book Reviews

Review of Bartholomew Brinkman, Poetic Modernism in the Culture of Mass Print (Johns Hopkins UP, 2016. Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, January, 2018.

Review of Mary Lynn Stewart, Dressing Modern Frenchwomen: Market Haute Couture, 1919-1939 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2008). The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Fall 2009.

Review of Jane Wood, Passion and Pathology in Victorian Fiction (Oxford UP, 2001) Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 13 No 2, July 2004, pp. 167-169.

Media

Opinion Contributor, “The Misogyny of FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan, LA Review of Books (May 7, 2017), https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/misogyny-fxs-feud-bette-joan/

Opinion Contributor, “We Don’t Need Another Diva,” Ms. Magazine Blog (February 6, 2017), http://msmagazine.com/blog/2017/02/06/dont-need-another-diva/

Work in Progress

Selected Letters of Amy Lowell, under contract with Bloomsbury (2024)

Collectible Women: Literary Celebrity and the Rhetorics of Remembering, book monograph in progress.

Grants and Awards

Research:

NEH-Mellon Foundation Fellowship for Digital Publication in support of “The Amy Lowell Letters Project,” 2021-2022 ($60,000)

NEH Humanities Connections Grant, Lead Researcher for the American Library Association’s “Let’s Talk About It: Women and Suffrage,”  developing resources and training for a nationwide reading and discussion program focused on the history of suffrage and its aftermath, 2021 ($249,999)

Loyola University Chicago, Office of Research Services Grant, 2020-2021 ($5000)

Newberry Library Short-Term Fellow, Summer/Fall 2020 ($2500)

Newberry Library Scholar in Residence, 2019-present

Modernist Studies Association scholarship to attend Digital Humanities Summer Institute, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., June 9-14, 2019

Loyola University Chicago, Office of Research Services Grant, 2018-2019 ($5000)

Newberry Library Short-Term Fellow, Summer 2018 ($2500)

Modernist Studies Association Research Travel Grant, Summer 2018 ($1000)

NEH Summer Institute Scholar, “Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Twentieth Century Chicago, 1893-1955,” Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, 2017

Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellow, Loyola University Chicago, The OpEd Project, Spring 2017

Modern Language Association Book Prize for Independent Scholars, 2011

DePaul Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship, 2007-2008

DePaul University Research Council Competitive Research Grant, 2007

DePaul University Faculty Research and Development Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Summer 2007

DePaul University Faculty Research and Development Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Summer 2005

NEMLA Summer Travel Grant, 1999, for research at the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Parley A. and Ruth J. Christensen Award for Outstanding Student in English, Brigham Young University, 1992.

Teaching

Loyola University Chicago, St. Ignatius Loyola Award, 2014 (Nominated), 2019 (Nominated)

DePaul University, Excellence in Teaching Award, 2010 (Nominated)

DePaul University Office of LGBTQA Student Services Outstanding Faculty Leader, 2008

Invited Talks

“Large Projects, Large Teams: Benefits, Drawbacks, and Strategies for Project Management and Collaboration,” Digital Humanities Initiative Spring Workshop, University of Illinois Chicago, April 2021.

“The Amy Lowell Letters Project: Digitizing a Career in Poetry.” Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities, Loyola University Chicago, March 11, 2020.

“Myths and Mysteries of Louisa May Alcott.” Edgewater Village Speaker Series, Edgewater Library, Chicago, IL, September 7, 2018.

“Gertrude Stein’s Plastic Afterlife.” Newberry Colloquium Series, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, August 22, 2018.

“Gertrude Stein’s Plastic Afterlife.” International Lawrence Durrell Society Conference, Chicago, IL, July 6, 2018.

“The Poet as Postage Stamp.” The Future of English Studies Symposium, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, May 7, 2018.

“Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems, 100 Years Later,” Loyola University Libraries, Loyola University Chicago, April 7, 2016.

“Tradition and the Belligerent Talent, or Sisters are Doing it for Themselves,” plenary talk at Virginia Woolf and Her Female Contemporaries: Twenty-fifth Annual International Virginia Woolf Conference, Bloomsburg, PA, June 4-7, 2015.

Conference Presentations

“The Marianne Moore Postage Stamp: Fantasy, Ideology, and Cultural Memory,” for the session “Poems, Popular Culture, and Ephemera.” Marianne Moore and the Archive Virtual Conference, Buffalo, NY, May 24-26, 2021.

“Extra-literary Celebrity and the Queer Art of Paper Dolls,” for the session “Modernity’s Graphic Excesses,” Modernist Studies Association, Twentieth Annual Conference, Columbus, OH, November 8-11, 2018.

 “Gertrude Stein’s Plastic Afterlife,” for the session “Temporal Drag and Feminist Afterlives,” The Space Between, Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Twentieth Annual Conference, Greeley, CO, June 7-9, 2018.

“Front Page Deaths: Sara Teasdale, Elinor Wylie, and the Mythologizing Power of the Celebrity Obituary,” for the session “Timely Writing: Women and Periodicals,” The Space Between, Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, Nineteenth Annual Conference, Oxford, MS, May 25-27, 2017.

“The Idea of the Actress: Fantasies of Tragic Femininity in Sara Teasdale’s

Sonnets to Duse,” for the session “Modernism and the Actress,” Modernist Studies Association Seventeenth Annual Conference, Boston, MA, November 19-22, 2015.

 “He Said, She Said: Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in Each Other’s Letters,” for the panel “Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell and Cultural Memory” (session organizer), Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Vancouver, B.C., January 8-11, 2015.

“The Poet as Postage Stamp: Edna St. Vincent Millay and Marianne Moore’s Afterlives as Government Currency,” for the panel “Unlikely Circulations: Repurposing the Modernist Archive” (session organizer), Modernist Studies Association Sixteenth Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, November 6-9, 2014.

“How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Author’s Bad Reputation,” for the panel “Rebecca West and Her Contemporaries,” Sixth Biennial Rebecca West Conference, New York, NY, September 21-22, 2013.

“The Fall of the House of Ezra: How Amy Lowell Used Edgar Allan Poe to Americanize Imagism,” for the panel “From Imagism to ‘Amygism’ to Vorticism,” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Boston, MA, January 3-6, 2013.

“Lady Macbeth Goes to Hollywood: Edith Sitwell’s American Tour, 1950-1951,” for the roundtable “Camp Modernism,” Modernist Studies Association Fourteenth Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, October 18-21, 2012. 

“The Poet as Diva: Femininity, Celebrity and Poetry, 1912-1930,” DePaul Humanities Center Faculty Fellows Program presentation, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, April 22, 2008.

“Devouring the Diva: Martyrdom as Feminist Backlash in The Rose,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Philadelphia, PA March 6-9, 2008.

“Amy Lowell’s Hair,” for the panel “Clothing, Nation, and Shame” (session organizer), Modernist Studies Association Ninth Annual Conference, Long Beach, CA, November 1-4, 2007.

“’Gladiator Fights and Wild Beast Shows’: The New Poetry as Nationalist Polemic in Amy Lowell’s Public Lectures, 1915-1920,” for the panel “Literary Lecture Tours,” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, December 27-30, 2007.

“Bodice-Ripper Poetry: Sex, Sadism, and Social Change in Amy Lowell’s Historical Narratives,” Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Philadelphia, PA, November 8-11, 2006.

Respondent and session leader, “Diets, Dieters, and Dieting: Fat, Weight, and Women’s Writing in the 20th Century,” Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Philadelphia, PA, November 8-11, 2006.

“Fashioning and Self-Fashioning in Iconic Photographs of Edna St. Vincent Millay,” Modernist Studies Association Eighth Annual Conference, Tulsa, OK, October 19-22, 2006.

Panelist, “Open Forum on Feminism: From the Archive to the Student: Feminist Texts for Modernism,” Modernist Studies Association Eighth Annual Conference, Tulsa, OK, October 19-22, 2006.

“The Apotheosis of St. Edith: Edith Sitwell in Cecil Beaton’s Fashion Photography,” Modernist Studies Association Seventh Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, November 3-6, 2005.

Panelist, “Editing an Anthology” session, Midwest Modern Language Association Conference, Minneapolis, MN, November 8-10, 2002.

“Affectation,” for the panel “Modernist Personalities,” Modernist Studies Association Fourth Annual Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, October 31-November 3, 2002

“Amy Lowell, Diva Poet,” for the panel “Reassessing Amy Lowell,” (session organizer) Modern Language Association Convention, New Orleans, LA, December 2001.

“‘Christ! What are patterns for?: Reading Amy Lowell As/Through Camp,” for the panel “Camp Modernism,” (session organizer) Modernist Studies Association Conference, October 12-15, 2000, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

“The Hippopoetess and the Peasant Woman: Amy Lowell, Gertrude Stein and Discourses of Embodiment and Obesity,” 1999 NEMLA Convention, April 16-17, 1999, Pittsburgh, PA.

“The Fat Woman in the Attic: Reading Amy Lowell’s Body(s),” for the conference “Oral Fixations: Cannibalizing Theories, Consuming Cultures,” April 2-3, 1999, The George Washington University Program in the Human Sciences, Washington D.C.

“‘Amy Lowell, from left to right’: The Politics of Obesity and the Construction of a Persona,” for the conference “Considered Unsightly: A Transdisciplinary Conference on the Freakish and Monstrous,” October 25-26, 1997, University of Leeds Centre for Cultural Studies, Leeds, England.

“‘Well, but they let you talk’: Servants, Silence and Subjectivity in The Mysteries of Udolpho,” Aphra Behn Society Conference, October 20-22, 1996, Athens, GA.

“Redrawing our Boundaries: The Future of Feminism and Literary Studies,” for the panel “The Fate of Feminism: Is there a Next Generation?” The Fifth Annual Women’s Studies Conference at Southern Connecticut State University, September 30-October 1, 1995, New Haven, CT.

“’Funny business, a woman’s career’: Sex, Gender, and Role-Playing in Mankewicz’s All About Eve,” The 24th Annual Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, March 1994, Chicago, IL.

Professional Service

Editorial Boards

  • Associate Editor/Book Review Editor Feminist Modernist Studies (Co-winner, Council of Editors of Learned Journals “Best New Journal,” 2019) (2017-present)
  • Elected member, advisory board The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945 (2015-2018)
  • Member, editorial board NANO: New American Notes Online (nanocrit.com) (2019-present)                       
  • Studies in Gothic Fiction (2009-present)
  • Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies (2006-present)

Manuscript Review 

  • Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, 2020
  • Humanities, 2019
  • Modernism/modernity, 2017
  • Studies in Musical Theater, 2017
  • The Space Between, 2017, 2020
  • PMLA, 2014
  • Studies in the Humanities, 2014
  • Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2012
  • Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2010
  • Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 2006, 2009
  • NWSA Journal, 2009
  • American Studies, 2005

Conference Organizer

Director, Feminist inter/Modernist Studies Association Conference, “Feminist Revolutions: Literature, History, Fine Arts, Cultural Studies (1870-1970),” Scheduled for April 3-5, 2020 (canceled because of Covid-19 pandemic), Loyola University Chicago

Co-Director, with Julia Stern, “All About Bette: The Cultural Legacies of Bette Davis,” October 5-6, 2018, Northwestern University, Chicago

Conference Organizing Committee, The Space Between, Literature and Culture, 1914-1945 annual conference, June 7-9, 2018, University of Northern Colorado

Director, “The Poetry and Poetic Life of Denise Levertov,” Joan and Bill Hank Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University Chicago, October 23-25, 2015

Teaching

Senior Lecturer in Core Literature and Writing, English Department, Loyola University Chicago, 2010 to present

  • University Core Writing Workshop (UCWR 110)
  • University Core Literature Course (UCLR 100) (focus on Chicago literature)
  • Women and Literature (ENGL 283)
  • Human Values in Literature (ENGL 290)
  • Graduate Seminar in Pedagogy (ENGL 404)
  • Graduate Seminar in Composition Pedagogy (ENGL 402)
  • Graduate Practicum in Digital Humanities (DIGH 500)
  • Newberry Library Undergraduate Seminar, Spring 2018 (Art and Literature in Chicago), Spring 2021 (Chicago, City of Art and Industry)

Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, DePaul University, 2004 to 2010

  • Women’s Lives: Race, Class, and Gender (WMS 100)
  • Feminist Frameworks (WMS 250; History of Feminism)
  • Deconstructing the Diva (WMS 255)
  • Queer Theory, an Introduction (WMS 284)
  • Feminist Theories (WMS 300/400)
  • Queer Theory (WMS 388/488)
  • Popular Literature: Middlebrow Modern (ENG 286)
  • Freshman Focal Point Seminar: Edgar Allan Poe (LSP 101)
  • Sophomore Seminar in Multiculturalism: American Women Writers of Color (LSP 200)
  • Americans in Paris: Expatriate Modernism (HON 205)
  • Decadent Victorians (HON 300)

Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, Barat College of DePaul University 2002 to 2004

  • Introduction to the Writing Process (ENG 103)
  • Sophomore Seminar in Multiculturalism: Women and Identity (LSP 200)
  • Popular Literature: Studies in the Gothic (ENG 286)
  • Modern British Literature (ENG 350)
  • Realism and Naturalism in American Literature (ENG 362) 
  • Modern Poetry (ENG 366)
  • Deconstructing the Diva (HUM 255)
  • Decadent Victorians (HUM 376)
  • Americans in Paris: Expatriate Modernism (HUM 390)
  • Representations of the Body (WMS 316)

Postdoctoral Fellow, English Department, SUNY at Stony Brook, 2000-2002

  • Survey of British Literature II (1660-1900) 
  • Survey of American Literature II (1865-1945)
  • Literary Analysis and Argumentation (Fiction, Drama, Poetry)
  • Major Victorian Authors: Decadents and Aesthetes of the 1890s
  • Topics in Gender Studies: Deconstructing the Diva 
  • Gender Theory: Theorizing Embodiment
  • Female Poets Performing: Iconic American Poets and Popular Culture 
  • Major American Authors: Edgar Allan Poe 
  • Modernist Literature, Art and Music
  • Popular Novels of the 1920s, 30s and 40s
  • Topics in Gender Studies: Twentieth Century American Women’s Poetry

Instructor, “Americans in Paris 1910-1940: The Lost Generation,” Paris, France, Upper Midwest Association for Intercultural Education, January Term study abroad course for a consortium of eleven liberal arts colleges, 1999, 2000, 2002

Graduate Teaching Assistant, English Department, Writing Program, and Women’s Studies, SUNY at Stony Brook, 1994-1998

  • Introduction to the Writing Process (Basic Writing)
  • Intermediate Writing Workshop (First-Year Writing)
  • Introduction to Literature: Poetry 
  • Introduction to Literature: Drama  
  • Introduction to Women’s Studies in the Humanities
  • Literatures in English (assisted in class of 120).

Graduate Teaching Assistant, English Department, Brigham Young University, 1992-1994

  • First-Year Writing
  • Survey of British Literature II (1800-1950) (Assisted in classes of 150)

University Service

Loyola University Chicago

  • Surtz Lecture Committee (2019-2021)
  • College of Arts and Sciences Committee on Loyola University Museum of Art (2018-2019)
  • Elected member, English Department Council (2016-present)
  • Writing Across the Curriculum Coordinator (2014-present)
  • Bridge to Loyola, Instructor and Mentor (2011-2017)
  • Member, Writing Program Committee (2010-present)
  • Member, English Department Hearing Board (2011-2012; 2015-2016); substitute (2014)
  • Faculty Mentor, Graduate Student Writing Workshop (2011-2014)
  • Reader, Writing Placement Exam for Entering Freshman (2012-2014)

DePaul University

  • Elected Representative, DePaul University Faculty Council (2005 to 2009)
  • Workshop leader, Illinois LGBTQA Student Conference, March 31, 2007
  • Organizing Committee for “Out There: Second Annual Conference of Scholars and Student Affairs Personnel Involved in LGBTQ Issues on Catholic College and University Campuses,” October 19 & 20, 2007
  • Barat College Representative, Teaching, Learning and Technology Committee (2002-2004)
  • Elected member, Women’s and Gender Studies Advisory Board, DePaul University (2003-2004)
  • Member, ad hoc committee to develop Gay and Lesbian Studies program at DePaul University (2002-2004)

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LA&S), DePaul University

  • LA&S Task Force on Reading (Spring 2008)
  • McCormick Tribune Community Internship board, Steans Center (Fall 2007-2009)
  • LA&S Task Force on Student Advising (2006-2007)
  • Faculty Governance Council, Faculty Council Representative (non-voting) (2006 to 2007)
  • Advisory Board, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Minor (2005-2009)
  • Jeanne LaDuke Women in Science Lecture Series Committee (2006-2009)
  • New Student Advisor (Summer 2005, 2006; Dec 2006)

Women’s and Gender Studies Program, DePaul University

  • Member, Graduate Program Committee (2006 to 2009)
  • Chair, Scholarship and Awards Committee (2006-2007)
  • Advisor to student interns for WGS newsletter (2006 to 2009)
  • Women’s and Gender Studies 20th Anniversary Celebration Committee (2005)
  • Chair, Ballenger Memorial Scholarship Award Committee (2005-2006)
  • Development Committee M.A, 5-year B.A./M.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies (June 2004 to 2005) 
  • Gender Studies Reading Group Committee (2005 to 2006)

Barat College, DePaul University

Secretary, Barat Faculty Council (2003)

Member, Humanities working group, developing Interdisciplinary Humanities major and curriculum (2002-2003)

First year advising (2003)

Advisor, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Club (2003-04)

Advisor, Barat Students Against War (2003)

Robert Pinsky/George McGovern planning committee (2003)

International initiative advisory committee (2003-2004)