Susanne E. Hall
Thompson Writing Program
Duke University, Box 90025
Durham, NC 27708-0025
Susanne.Hall[AT]duke[DOT]edu
919-660-7063 (office)
http://www.susannehall.com
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
Academic Employment
Post-doctoral Fellow, Thompson Writing Program, Duke University, Fall 2008-present
Research Interests
U.S. poetry and poetics (19th-21st centuries), Anglo-American modernisms, Electronic Literature, media studies and print culture, New Left politics, theories of ideology, literary rhetoric
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 examines 1960s U.S. poetry and the anxieties generated by threats mass-mediated communications posed to poetic language, the mind, and the conditions of possibility for political dissent. Within this context I read the media theories and poetic work of Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Robert Duncan, and Denise Levertov.
Current revision of the manuscript includes new work on the roles poetry played in organizing—politically and psychologically—specific New Left revolutionary movements.
Publications
“Angela Davis,” “Larry Rivers,” “Poster Art,” “Television,” “Venice, California,” and “Weather Underground.” In American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Publications, Nov 2008.
“Tracking the Field,” a review of Joe Amato’s Industrial Poetics. Postmodern Culture 18.3, May 2008.
“Do Look Back: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Howl.’” Minnesota Review 69. Dec. 2007.
Academic Awards and Honors
Thompson Writing Program Research Grant, 2009
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
Graduate Student Travel Grant; Modern Language Association, 2007
Summer Dissertation Fellowship; UC Irvine, 2007
Regents Dissertation Fellowship; UC Irvine, 2007
Graduate Student Research and Travel Award; UC Irvine, 2007 & 2005
Charles D. Abbott Library Fellow, Poetry Collection; SUNY Buffalo, 2006
Humanities Center Research Grant; UC Irvine, 2006
Schaeffer Fellowship; UC Irvine, 2001-2
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society; Wake Forest University, 2000
Carswell Grant for Summer Research; Wake Forest University, 1999 & 2000
Carswell Merit Scholarship; Wake Forest University, 1997-2001
Invited Lectures and Conferences
“The Authentic Misfit: Allen Ginsberg and Mass Media.” Panel on “Misfits and Trailblazers.” Duke University Romance Studies conference “In/disciplining the Misfit,” September 2009.
“Poetry as Political Practice: U.S. Lyric and Organization in the 1960s.” Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, February 2009.
“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 Association Conference, 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, 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.” “Lyric Theory” panel organized by Jonathan Culler. American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, March 2005.
Teaching Experience
Duke University (Fall 2008-present)
The Literary New Left
This writing-in-the-disciplines seminar, taught for Duke’s English Department, introduces students to the political-historical context of the U.S. in the 1960s and to a generically diverse grouping of literary texts that grapple with the rapidly changing politics and culture of that moment. In exploring novels, poetry, plays, and new journalism, the course asks, among other things, how the formal qualities of literary writing relate to the rhetorical effects these works pursued.
The Literature of Your Lifetime: Exploring the Effects of New Media on Writing
This writing seminar explores trends in literary writing that have emerged during the lifespan of the freshmen taking the course; more specifically, we focus on Electronic Literature as well as the changes registered in traditional forms like the novel by digital technologies. We match this interest by exploring the uses and challenges of new technologies for academic writing, such that students experiment with multi-modal essays as well as creative publication and collaborative writing strategies opened up by blogs and wikis, in addition to writing more traditional essays.
Arguing for Revolution: Investigating Radical Rhetorics
I designed this writing seminar around revolutionary rhetoric to introduce freshman writers to rhetorical aspects of their academic writing through an analysis of historical, artistic, and philosophical texts in which rhetoric was pushed to an extreme. Writing projects included a “countering” of revolutionary philosophies from the students’ own perspectives and work in the Duke archives.
University of California, Irvine (2002-2008)
Literature Courses:
The Poetic Imagination (Instructor)
Comic and Tragic Vision (Instructor)
Realism and Romance (Instructor)
These three courses constitute a genre-based series taken by English majors on poetry, drama, and the novel, respectively. I designed and taught one section of each; all contained texts spanning three centuries. My course on the lyric maintained a special attention to poems about poetry. My drama course called for reading politically engaged plays in a historicized manner and examining dramatic strategies for political dissent. My course on the novel emphasized questions of constructions of the first-person narrative self and theories of authorship.
U.S. Poetry 1950-1990 (Teaching assistant to Rei Terada)
U.S. Literature 1945-1955 (Teaching assistant to Brook Thomas)
U.S. Literature in the Age of Slavery (Teaching assistant to Elisa Tamarkin)
Literatures of Segregation (Teaching assistant to Brook Thomas)
In addition to responsibilities related to creating course materials and grading, I wrote and delivered selected lectures in these courses.
Composition Courses:
Fundamentals of Composition (Instructor)
Critical Reading & Rhetoric (Instructor)
Argument & Research (Instructor)
This series of three composition courses emphasizes writing as process. The first course introduces students to the principles of rhetoric and basic writing skills. The second provides guided practice in reading and writing academic prose. The third course emphasizes argumentation, logic, and methods of inquiry in the creation of a substantial academic research project and essay; it also teaches digital literacy through the extensive use of an online writing platform.
Service Learning Courses:
Humanities Out There (Instructor)
Humanities Out There is an award-winning educational partnership 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 trained and mentored a team of undergraduates to lead workshops I designed on topics related to 19th-century American literature.
Languages
Spanish (proficient speaking and writing, fluent reading)
German (proficient reading)
Scholarly Service
Thompson Writing Program Steering Committee, 2009-2010
Course Curriculum Committee, Thompson Writing Program, Spring 2009
Editorial Assistant, Postmodern Culture, 2006-2008
Campus-wide Writing Committee representative, UC Irvine, 2002-2003
English Department Graduate Committee, UC Irvine, 2002-2003
Community Service
Volunteer Tutor at 826 LA (a non-profit literacy organization), 2006-2008
Professional Affiliations
Modern Language Association
Modernist Studies Association
American Comparative Literature Association
American Studies Association
References
Upon Request