Susanne E. Hall
Postdoctoral Fellow
Thompson Writing Program
Duke University
200B Art Building
Durham, NC 27708
949-929-9435
susanne.hall AT duke dot edu
Education
Ph.D., English, University of California, Irvine, June 2008
M.A., English, University of California, Irvine, June 2003
B.A., with Honors in English, summa cum laude, Wake Forest University, June 2001
Dissertation
News That Stays News: U.S. Poetry, New Left Politics, and Mass Media in the 1960s
Committee: Rei Terada (chair), John Carlos Rowe, Mark Goble.
My dissertation argues that a new U.S. lyric emerged in the 1960s that was a publicly performed practice rather than a privately consumed text, and that this lyric should be understood as a product of anxiety over the power of mass media. Chapters on the Howl trial, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Denise Levertov, and Robert Duncan explore poetic projects of liberation of consciousness in the contexts of emerging New Left theories of psychopolitics and mass media.
Academic Awards and Honors
Chancellor’s Club Fund for Excellence Dissertation Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2008
Howard Babb Memorial Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2007-8
Alexander Publications LLC Graduate Student Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2007-8
Summer Dissertation Fellowship, UC Irvine, Summer 2007
Regents Dissertation Fellowship, UC Irvine, Spring 2007
Charles D. Abbott Library Fellow, Poetry Collection, SUNY Buffalo, 2006
Humanities Center Research Grant, UC Irvine, for archival research at Stanford, Spring 2006
Graduate Student Research and Travel Awards, UC Irvine, 2005, 2007
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship alternate, U.S. Department of Education, 2002
Schaeffer Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2001-2002
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Wake Forest University, inducted Spring 2000
Carswell Grant for Summer Research, Wake Forest University, 1999, 2000
Carswell Merit Scholarship, Wake Forest University, 1997-2001
Dean’s List, Wake Forest University, 1997-2001
Publications
“Do Look Back: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Howl.’” Minnesota Review. Forthcoming December 2007.
“Angela Davis,” “Larry Rivers,” “Poster Art,” “Television,” “Venice, California,” and “Weatherman.” Encyclopedia of the American Counterculture. Eds. Gina Misiroglu and Karen Karbiener, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Publications. Forthcoming Spring 2008.
Research and Teaching Interests
U.S. poetry and poetics (19th-21st centuries), Anglo-American modernisms, media studies, book history and print culture, New Left politics, theories of ideology, cultural studies
Conference/Paper Presentations
“Poetry in an Age of Televised War: The Letters of Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan.” Panel on “Traveling Communications: Analyzing Letters and Correspondence.” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, April 2008.
Co-chair of “Liminal Long Beach” panel. American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, April 2008.
“Getting Off: New Criticism, Obscenity, and the Howl Trial.” Seminar essay for “Modernisms in the 1950s,” Modernist Studies Conference, Long Beach, CA, Nov 2007.
“Hart Crane In Mexico: The Undoing of an American Visionary Poetics.” Panel on “Imagined Mexico: Transnational and Literary Mappings,” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, Puebla, Mexico, March 2007.
“Poetic-In-Justice: 1960s U.S. Poetry in the Courtroom.” Paper delivered at SUNY Buffalo Poetry Collection on invitation of the Humanities Institute, Buffalo, NY, October 2006.
“Daylight Simplicities: Narrative Prose, Lyric Verse, and the Innovations of Life Studies.” Paper delivered as part of “Lyric Theory” panel organized by Jonathan Culler at American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, University Park, PA, March 2005.
Teaching Experience
Duke University (2008-present)
Arguing for Revolution: Exploring Revolutionary Rhetorics
This freshman writing seminar explores the rhetorical situation of the revolutionary writer, particularly in the philosophical context of Marxian theories of revolution and in the historical context of radical movements in the 1960s. Students draw on multiple modes of writing including personal essays, archival research surveys, and rhetorical analysis as a part of a process that introduces them to academic writing communities and the practice of writing-as-process.
University of California, Irvine (2001-2008)
U.S. Poetry 1950-1990 (Teaching assistant to Rei Terada)
A survey of post-war U.S. poetries, including Lowell, Bishop, Ginsberg, Kinnell, Mullen, and Ashbery. Lectured on Ginsberg, Kinnell, and Mullen, co-authored exams, and graded.
U.S. Literature 1945-1955 (Teaching assistant to Brook Thomas)
An examination of post-war U.S. literature, emphasizing the effects of American Imperialisms. Lectured on Robert Penn Warren, led discussion sections, helped generate exams, and graded.
U.S. Literature in the Age of Slavery (Teaching assistant to Elisa Tamarkin)
A survey of literary and cultural works from the antebellum period, with a special focus on visual representations of slavery and race. Graded papers and exams.
Literatures of Segregation (Teaching assistant to Brook Thomas)
A course focusing on both literary representations and legal definitions of race in the U.S. between Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board. Lectured on Hurston, and graded essays and exams.
The Poetic Imagination (Instructor)
I designed this introductory course on the lyric, with a special attention to poems about poetry. Poets included Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Blake, Dickinson, Whitman, Pound, Eliot, Moore, Hughes, Bishop, Lowell and Ginsberg.
Comic and Tragic Vision (Instructor)
I designed this introductory course on drama, with a specific focus on reading politically engaged plays in a historicized manner, and examining dramatic strategies for political dissent. Playwrights included Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Anna Deavere Smith, and Doug Wright.
Realism and Romance (Instructor)
I designed this introductory course on the novel, with an emphasis on questions of constructions of the first-person narrative self and theories of authorship. Authors included Defoe, Sterne, Douglass, Thoreau, Plath, and Hong Kingston, as well as Barthes and Foucault.
Humanities Out There (Instructor)
Humanities Out There is an award winning educational partnership between UCI and the Santa Ana Unified School district that brings UCI faculty and students into dialogue with students and teachers in public schools in an “effort to create a new community of scholar-citizens united by shared values of intellectual inquiry, action through creativity, and civic inclusiveness.” I recruited and trained a team of undergraduates to lead workshops designed under my supervision.
Fundamentals of Composition; Critical Reading and Rhetoric; Argument and Research (Instructor)
This series of three composition courses emphasizes writing as process and emphasizes revision of writing. The first course introduces students to the principles of rhetoric and basic writing skills. The second provides guided practice in reading and writing both popular and academic prose. The third course emphasizes argumentation, logic, and methods of inquiry in the creation of an extensive academic research project and essay; it also teaches digital literacy through the extensive use of an online writing platform.
Languages
Spanish (proficient speaking and writing, fluent reading)
German (proficient reading)
Professional Activities and Affiliations
Founder Marx Reading Group, UC Irvine, 2007
Editorial Assistant, Postmodern Culture, Fall 2006-present
Campus Wide Writing Committee, UC Irvine, 2002-2003
English Department Graduate Committee, UC Irvine, 2002-2003
Modernist Studies Association, 2006-present
American Comparative Literature Association, 2005-present
Modern Language Association, 2001-present
Recommendations
Rei Terada. Chair and Professor of Comparative Literature, UC Irvine.
John Carlos Rowe. Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, UC Irvine;
USC Associates Chair of the Humanities, Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California.
Mark Goble. Assistant Professor of English, UC Irvine.
Brook Thomas. Chancellor’s Professor of English, UC Irvine.
Michael Basinski. Curator, SUNY Buffalo Poetry Collection.