Jennifer White, PH.D. Writing Coach

EDUCATION

Ph.D. English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, May 2009

Dissertation: “Trouble with Time: Contemporary American Literature and

Environmental Crisis”

M.Phil., English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University May 2003;

Fields Covered: 20th century American Literature; globalization and transnational culture; postmodern historical fiction

M.A., English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University May 2001;

M.A. Thesis: “The Fourth World of Los Angeles in Karen Yamashita’s Tropic of

Orange”

B.A. with honors, Modern Thought and Literature, Stanford University May 1995.

      Honor’s Thesis: “Orlando, Novel & Film: Form & the Construction of Gender."

 

TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS

Composition, Postwar American Fiction; modernism and postmodernism; literatures of globalization and transnational culture; environmental literature and ecocriticism, science and technology studies, autobiography, classics of world literature.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Columbia University, Department of the Core Curriculum

Adjunct Professor, 2009-2010

Taught “Literature Humanities,” a year-long survey of Western Culture’s “great works” of literature, starting with the Sumarian epic and ending with American postmodernism.

Preceptor, 2004-2006

Same as above.

The New School, English Department

        Taught “Literary Foundations,” a reading and writing-intensive survey of world

         literature ranging from  ancient Greek literature to contemporary African fiction.

Columbia University, Department of English and Comparative Literature

Writing Instructor, 2002-2004

Taught four semesters of a class on writing and research.

T.A. (Teacher’s Assistant) 2001-2002

Assisted professors in the following courses: “Jazz and American Culture” ; “Postwar American Fiction”; and “Deep Sea Thought.” Gave lectures, held office hours, graded all written work, and determined final grades.

AWARDS

Columbia University, New York, NY

Core Curriculum Teaching Award 2005

Teaching Fellowship, 2001-2006;

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

Ruth Headley Award for Outstanding Honors Thesis, 1995.

Created the first CD ROM-based honors thesis at Stanford University, 1995;

Golden Grant for research, 1994.

DISSERTATION

“Trouble With Time: Contemporary American Literature and Environmental Crisis”

“Trouble with Time” examines environmental time as a recurring dramatic concern of contemporary American literature treating environmental crisis. Investigating fictional and non-fictional texts, from autobiography and the ethnic Bildungsroman to postmodern and science fiction novels, I argue that representations of environmental time dramatically restructure familiar narratives in order to imagine how invisible, long-term hazards such as toxicity and radiation transform human experiences of time and history, subjectivity and agency. This dissertation tests the claim that globalization has foreshortened time-space horizons to the point that people are now incapable of long-term perspectives and of conceiving themselves as historical beings. It also challenges place-based environmental connection and advocacy found in popular culture and, more surprisingly, in ecocriticism as well. Critical attention to representations of environmental time reveals it to be more central to narratives and identities than previously imagined and leads to new ways of reading the contemporary novel and autobiography.

PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

“Summer Series: Thucydidies” and “Summer Series: Virginia Woolf.” Radio interviews broadcasted on WKCR 89.9 FM NY Summer 2007. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

"The Untimely Eruption of Evolutionary Memory." Paper presented at the SLSA (Society for Literature Science and the Arts) conference in NYC November, 2006

“‘The Old World Dawning New In Me’: The Nature of Memory in Linda Hogan’s Fiction and Poetry.” Narrative Conference in Ottawa, Canada, April 2006.

Chair of “Ethics, Memory and Instability” session at the Narrative Conference in Ottawa, Canada, April 2006.

“Timescapes of the Human.” Paper presented at the ACLA (American Comparative Literature Conference) at Princeton University in March, 2006.

“Gravity’s Rainbow: How to Become a “Sentient Rockster.” Paper presented at The Narrative Conference

in Louisville, KY, April, 2005.

MEMBERSHIPS AND SERVICE

Service

Seminar Leader, American Dissertation Seminar, Columbia University 2004-2005

Member, English Department Graduate Student Council, Columbia University 2001-2003;

Member, English Department Graduate Admissions Committee, Columbia University 2001-2003;

Project Director, Center for Jazz Studies (planned & produced a major academic symposium), 2002;

Grant Writer, Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, 2003-2005;

Student Representative, English Department Faculty Committee, Stanford University, 1994-1995.

Memberships

Modern Language Association

Society for the Study of Narrative Literature

Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE)

American Studies Association

Society for the Study of Science and Literature

LANGUAGES

Reading, translation and speaking competence in German;

Reading and translation competence in Spanish.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

ESL Conversation Partner Volunteer, NYCares (2003-2006)

Business Development Manager for a successful Internet start-up company (1997-1999).

Leader of SF Women on the Web, a non-profit education and support organization for women in technology. (1995-1996).

Fiction Writing Instructor, Sacred Heart Middle School, Palo Alto, CA (1995)