Carla Billitteri
Associate Professor of English
401 Neville Hall
Office Telephone: 207.581.3805
Email: carlab@maine.edu
Office Hours – by appointment
I teach poetics, modern and contemporary literature, interpretation theory and critical theory with a special emphasis on gender studies, postcolonial/decolonial studies, and critical race studies. I am passionate about the intersection of literature, history, philosophy, the sciences, and the social sciences.
Core interests: language, logic, imagination, order and disorder of meaning in poetry, theatre, music, plastic and visual arts. Core preferences: hybrid and innovative forms of textuality, intermediality, social poetics, speculative thought, interdisciplinary theoretical discourses.
Core practice: semiotics, phenomenology, and critical hermeneutics.
Academic Positions
Current
Associate Professor, University of Maine, English Department, 2008—
Core Faculty, Center for Poetry and Poetics, 2008—
Core Faculty, National Poetry Foundation, University of Maine, 2008—
External Faculty, Doctoral Program in Anglo-American Studies, University of Catania, Italy, 2003—
Previous
Assistant Professor, University of Maine, English Department, 2002-2008.
Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Maine, English Department, 2001-2002.
Examiner and consultant, Critical Languages Program, University of Maine, 2000-2016.
Lecturer, University of Maine, English Department, 1999-2001.
Lecturer, D’Youville College, English Department, Fall 1999.
Education
Ph.D., English, University at Buffalo, 2001.
M.A., English, State University at Buffalo, 1995.
Laurea, magna cum laude, Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Catania, Italy, 1989.
Foreign Languages
Italian (native speaker) and French.
Current Book Project
I am currently working on a book on the ethics of recognition in contemporary poetics.
Areas of Specialization
Primary
Poetry and Poetics, Critical Theory.
Additional
Gender and Literature, Narrative Theory, Drama, Italian Poetry.
Grants and Fellowships
McGillicuddy Humanities Center Faculty Grant, research project on Laura Riding’s surrealist poetics, April 2023.
Fulbright Specialist, gender theory, critical theory, modern and contemporary poetics, January 2011-2016.
Translation Grant, New York State Council on the Arts, in collaboration with Litmus Press, September 2010.
Curriculum Development Grant, Women’s Studies Program, University of Maine, Summer 2003.
Research Fellowship, Graduate Group in Marxist Studies, University at Buffalo, 1994-1995.
Research Fellowship, Centro di Studi Americani, Rome, Italy, 1989.
Research Grant, University of Catania, Italy, 1989.
Research Fellowship, Centro di Studi Americani, Rome, Italy, 1988.
Publications
Book
Language and the Renewal of Society in Walt Whitman, Laura (Riding) Jackson, and Charles Olson: The American Cratylus. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Abstract: This book takes up the utopian desire for a perfect language of words that gives direct expression to the real, known in Western thought as Cratylism, and its impact on the social visions and poetic projects of three of the most intellectually ambitious of American writers, Walt Whitman, Laura (Riding) Jackson, and Charles Olson. A coda looks at the work of the Language writers, who carry forward this tradition in surprising ways. Based on close readings of theoretical and poetic texts, and drawing on archival research, Language and the Renewal of Society makes two basic claims: that belief in an intrinsic relationship between words and things is linked in American poetry to utopian social projects; and that poets with a deep understanding of how language operates are nonetheless attracted to this belief—despite recognizing its fantastic elements—because it allows them to articulate a social mandate for poetry.
Book of translation
Amnesia of the Movements of Clouds & Of Black and Red Verse. Litmus Press, February 2014.
Abstract: A work of translation of two books of the Sicilian poet Maria Attanasio, with translation notes and a critical introduction on modern and contemporary Italian poetics.
Articles
“The Method of Circumscription,” Il Velo di Maya: scritti in onore di Maria Vittoria D’Amico, edited by Salvatore Marano. Bonanno Editore, December 2017. 83-102.
“Lyn Hejinian’s Poetics of the Middle,” Aerial 10 (November 2015). 111-122.
“A Cartography of Chance: Interversation with James Wagner,” Entropy, January 23, 2015: n.p. http://entropymag.org/a-cartography-of-chance-an-interversation-with-carla-billitteri-and-james-wagner/
“Postface/Commentary”: Afterword to The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later edited by John R. Woznicki. Lehigh University Press, 2013. 275-278.
“Charles Olson’s Poetics of the Inactual,” The Worcester Review 31.1-2 (2010): 83-92.
“The Necessary Experience of Error,” How2 3.3 (Spring 2009) Special Feature: “Reading Carla Harryman.” http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal//vol_3_no_3/harryman/
“Stories, Not History: Laura Riding’s Progress of Truth,” Arizona Quarterly 65.1 (Spring 2009): 85-105.
“A Form of Tidiness: Laura (Riding) Jackson and the Work of Poetry-Writing,” Textual Practice 22.2 (June 2008): 315-36.
“William Carlos Williams and the Politics of Form,” The Journal of Modern Literature 30:2 (Winter 2007): 42-63.
“Riding-Graves: The Meaning of Collaboration,” Gravesiana 3:1 (2007): 86-100.
“The Passion of Becoming an Object,” Paideuma 35.1-2 (Spring-Fall 2006): 17-32.
“Doomsday: Passages in Laura Riding’s Poetics,” Chloroform: An Aesthetics of Critical Writing (Spring 1997): 174-84.
Notes
Program note for the play Urinetown, The Musical, produced by the University of Maine, School of Performing Arts, February 19–28, 2016.
“Sound and Texts” a set of four short texts for the 350 Poems Project, The Earth Archive, a multi-media event curated by Danielle Vogel. RISD Museum, July 18 2015.
“Introduction to Alda Merini, I am a Furious Little Bee” Oakland, CA: Hooke Press, 2008.
O sorriso de Laura Riding” (Laura Riding’s Smile), co-authored with Benjamin Friedlander, in Laura Riding, Mindscapes: Poemas, edited and translated by Rodrigo Garcia Lopes (Brazil: Illuminuras, 2004): 245-47.
“Translator’s Note: Patrizia Vicinelli,” How2, September 2000. http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/however/v1_4_2000/current/index.html
“Five Italian Poets: Introductory Remarks,” 99 Poets/1999: An International Poetics Symposium, edited by Charles Bernstein, published in Boundary2 26:1, Spring 1999.
“Partage of Realities: A Logic of Inframodal Destinerrance,” Rif/t, no. 4, January 1995.
Translations
Maria Attanasio, “Interiors/Interni,” Seedings, issue 3 (Summer 2017): n. p. http://durationpress.com/projects/seedings/seedings-issue-three/seedings_3_m-attanasio/
Maria Attanasio, “Details and Debris,” Atlanta Review 17.2 (Spring/Summer 2011): 72-74. Special issue: Italy, edited by Francesco Levato.
Maria Attanasio, poems from Amnesia of the Movement of the Clouds, Aufgabe 7 (Summer 2008): 71-73. Special issue: Emergent Italian poetry in translation, edited by Jennifer Scappettone.
Alda Merini, I am a Furious Little Bee. Oakland, CA: Hooke Press, 2008.
“Salvatore Camilleri, ‘Four Hats’” (co-translated with Benjamin Friedlander), Fascicle, no. 1, Summer 2005. http://www.fascicle.com/issue01/main/contents_frameset.htm
“Joan Perucho, ‘Twenty Three Poems,’” co-translated with Benjamin Friedlander. Fascicle, no. 1, Summer 2005. http://www.fascicle.com/issue01/main/contents_frameset.htm
Italian Epigrams, co-translated with Benjamin Friedlander. Catania: Porci con le Ali, 2001.
“Patrizia Vicinelli, Three Poems,” How2, September 2000. n.p. http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/however/v1_4_2000/current/index.html
“Five Italian Authors: Gianni D’Elia, Mara Cini, Milli Graffi, Flavio Ermini, Renato Barilli,” 99 Poets/1999: An International Poetics Symposium, edited by Charles Bernstein, Boundary2 26:1, Spring 1999.
“Cieli” and “Finisterre” (from Nanni Balestrini, Ipocalisse), Private Arts, Spring 1998.
“Sommerbird” and “Vortex” (from Nanni Balestrini, Ipocalisse), Rif/t, no. 4, January 1995.
“Turchese” (from Gianni D’Elia, Non per chi va), I Am a Child: Poetry After Robert Duncan and Bruce Andrews, edited by William R. Howe. Buffalo: Tailspin Press, 1995.
Presentations
Keynote addresses
“‘A perpetual cutting’: resistance to form and aporetic dialogism in radical black aesthetics,” AISNA (Associazione Italiana Studi Nord Americani), Centro di Studi Americani, 18 September 2024, Rome (Italy).
“Dissipative structures of subjectivity, intersectionality of address, and new poetics of facticity,” keynote address, international conference “Innovative Poetries – Innovations in Poetry,” Department of American Literature, University of Łódź, September 29, 2016.
“Fantasy, Intuition, Memory: Observations on Modern Art and Poetics,” in conjunction with the Rene and Chaim Gross foundation’s exhibit, “Fantasy: Chaim Gross Drawings, 1944-50,” March 5, 2011.
Invited speaker
“Satire, Negation and Conditional Futurity in Contemporary Black Poetics.” University of Maine, Marxist and Socialist Series, October 24, 2019.
“A Practice of Recognition: Documentary Poetics and the Ethics of the Other,” Faculty Reading Series, Department of English, University of Maine, November 20, 2016.
“Charles Olson, The Special View of History, and the aesthetics of the incomplete gesture.” Black Mountain Symposium, University of Maine, October 24, 2015.
“A ‘Visibility of Blindness’: Laura (Riding) Jackson’s Poetics of Intuition,” Laura (Riding) Jackson in the Twenty-First Century,” Cornell University, October 28, 2010.
“Diversional Events: Singularity and Multiplicity in Olson’s Poetics,” Olson at the Century: An Archival and Projective Reconsideration, University at Buffalo, October 15 2010.
“Olson’s Politics/Poetics of Transnational Utopia,” Charles Olson Centenary Poetry Symposium, Clark University, March 25, 2010.
“Walt Whitman and the Power of Names,” Doctoral Program in Anglo-American Studies, University of Catania, Italy, July 9, 2008.
“‘The Act of Image’: Charles Olson’s Cognitive Poetics,” Poetics Program, University at Buffalo, February 11, 2008.
“Charles Olson and the Matter of Writing,” University of Catania, Italy, July 2006.
“Truth or Method: Laura (Riding) Jackson’s Poetic Project,” University of Catania, Italy, July 2005.
Invited participant
“Phases of recognition—teaching the plural subject.” Thinking Its Presence, international conference on Race, Creativity, and Literary Studies. Panel/Roundtable on “Writing/Talking/Teaching the Racial Ephemera.” University of Arizona, Poetry Center, October 21, 2017. https://poetry.arizona.edu/TIP2017
“Common selves? Not just yet.” American Literature Association international conference, panel on “U.S. Women’s Post-Millennial Poetics of Resistance: Intersectionality, Provisionality, and Politics of a Community.” Boston, April 28 2017.
“Dissipative structures and aggregative transactions: notes toward a poetics of reading.” “Poetics: (The Next) 25 Years” conference, panel on “Language, Composition, Reading.” University at Buffalo, April 9, 2016.
“The process of determination as Bestimmung or vocation: Charles Olson and Black Mountain College.” Modernist Studies Association international conference, roundtable on Black Mountain College (I): Conceptual Underpinnings. Boston, November 19, 2015.
“The verticality of cognitive Acts: Charles Olson’s ‘Single Intelligence,’” Charles Olson Centenary Conference, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C., June 5, 2010.
Refereed
“The Long Controversy: Laura (Riding) Jackson and Analytical Philosophy.” International Conference on Logic and Modern Literature, Lausanne, Switzerland, September 14, 2023.
“Tomorrow words today”: Future Visions, Systemic Marginalization, and the Racial Imaginary.” Modern Languages Association international symposium, Remembering Voices Lost. Panel on “Re-Membering the Future: On the Poetics and Praxis of Articulating Marginalized Voices.” Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal, July 25, 2019.
“Blackness as Method.” British Association of American Studies international conference, panel: “Collective Articulations: Race, Identity and Internationalism in Postwar American Poetry.” University of Sussex, April 25, 2019. Conference program: https://baas2019.org/
“‘Groundless scrutiny’: dis-identity and indifference in Leslie Scalapino’s poetics.” Northeast Modern Language Association, panel 8.24, “Non-identity, Dis-identity, and Impersonality.” Hartford, Connecticut, March 18, 2016.
“Circumlocutions as Cultural Critique in Laura Riding and Carla Harryman,” Structures of Innovation: Modernist Studies Association International Conference, panel on “Circumlocutions, Divergences, and Misrecognitions: Degrees of Oppositional Rhetoric,” University at Buffalo, October 9, 2011.
“‘A Necessary Kind of Experience’: Carla Harryman’s Textual Hybridity,” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 22, 2008.
“Memetics of the Image: The Late Poetics of Charles Olson.” American Literature Association, panel “The End of the Maximus and the Late Prose of Charles Olson,” Boston, May 24 2007.
“‘A Relation Whose Form is Contradiction’: Figurations of Self in Paul Valéry and Laura (Riding) Jackson,” Modernist Studies Association international conference, Chicago, November 3, 2005.
“A Form of Tidiness: Laura Riding’s Responses to 1930s Political Crises,” Modernist Studies Association International Conference, Vancouver, B. C., October 20, 2004.
“Auratic Politics: The Aristocratic Revolution of Williams Carlos Williams,” Poetries of the 1940s, National Poetry Foundation international conference, University of Maine, June 25, 2004.
“The Beautiful Semblance of Authenticity,” Modernist Studies Association international conference, Birmingham, U. K., September 27, 2003.
“Lyn Hejinian’s Poetics of Uncertainty,” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 27, 2003.
“Riding/Graves: The Meaning of Collaboration,” Graves Conference 2000: Robert Graves in America, University at Buffalo, June 22, 2000.
“Fables of Meaning: History and Storytelling in Laura Riding’s Short Fiction,” Symposium on Laura (Riding) Jackson and the Promise of Language, Cornell University, October 8, 1998.
“The Passion of Becoming an Object: The Matter of Subjectivity in Language Writing,” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 1998.
“Until the End of History: Laura Riding’s Progress of Stories,” Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia, April 1997.
“Charles Olson and the Symbiotic Economy of Speech and Writing,” Poetries of the 1950s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 1996.
“Notes on Translating Nanni Balestrini’s Ipocalisse,” The Future of Poetry, State University of New York at Albany, January 1995.
Talks and Public Lectures
“From Crepuscolarismo to Dadaism: Affective Poetics of the corps morcelé.” Panel on the poetry of World War I, in honor of Jahan Ramazani, part of the McGillicuddy Humanities Center symposium: War without End: The Legacies of World War I. Bangor Room, University of Maine, February 22, 2019. https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2019/02/19/uva-professor-ramazani-to-lead-panel-on-poetry-of-the-first-global-war-feb-22/
“Interpellation in Epic Theatre, from Brecht to Urinetown.” Panel on “Urinetown: The Musical as Political Satire.” University of Maine Humanities Center as part of the Socialist and Marxist Studies Series, February 25, 2016.
“Epic Theatre and the Poetics of Doubt” Honors College, Cultural Odyssey, University of Maine, February 24 2016.
“The Poetics and Philosophy of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy,” Honors College, University of Maine, March 26 2013.
“Intersection of Feminism and the Philosophy of Deconstruction,” Women’s Studies Graduate Program, University of Maine, October 18 2012.
“Politics and Poetry in the 1930s: Laura (Riding) Jackson,” Socialist and Marxist Studies Luncheon Series, University of Maine, April 2007.
“Luigi Pirandello’s Theatre: Six Characters in Search of an Author,” The Maine Masque, University of Maine, April 2005.
“Acts of Reading, Acts of Gender: The Practice of Feminist Literary Criticism,” Women in the Curriculum Lunch Series, University of Maine, November 2004.
“William Carlos Williams and the Politics of Form,” University of Catania, Italy, July 2004.
“Interpellation, Gender, and the Question of the Feminine in Feminist Theory,” Graduate Program in Women’s Studies, University of Maine, November 2003.
“A Poetics of Uncertainty,” University of Catania, Italy, July 2003.
“Virginia Woolf To The Lighthouse: An Epistemic Feminist Novel,” Honors College, University of Maine, Spring 2002.
Other Scholarly Activities
Convened Conference Panels
“Re-Membering the Future: On the Poetics and Praxis of Articulating Marginalized Voices.” Modern Languages Association international symposium, Remembering Voices Lost, July 23-25, 2019, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal.: https://symposium.mla.org/lisbon/remembering-voices-lost/ Program: https://symposium.mla.org/files/2019/06/Symposium-Program-2019.pdf
“Non-identity, Dis-identity, and Impersonality” Northeast Modern Language Association, 47th Annual Convention, Hartford, Connecticut, March 17-19, 2016.
“This outcome, that does not cease to continue: Affect, Trauma, and Memory in Contemporary Postcolonial Poetics,” a seminar on theory and comparative studies. Northeast Modern Language Association, 45th Annual Convention, Harrisburg, Pennsylania, April 3-6, 2014.
“Circumlocutions, Divergences, and Misrecognitions: Degrees of Oppositional Rhetoric,” Structures of Innovation: Modernist Studies Association international conference, University at Buffalo, October 6-9 2011
Chaired Conference Panels
Chair, Panel on “Re-Membering the Future: On the Poetics and Praxis of Articulating Marginalized Voices,” Modern Languages Association international symposium, Remembering Voices Lost, July 23-25, 2019, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal.: https://symposium.mla.org/lisbon/remembering-voices-lost/ Program: https://symposium.mla.org/files/2019/06/Symposium-Program-2019.pdf
Chair, Panel on “Transnational and Projectivist Feminisms,” National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1990s. University of Maine, June 29 2017.
Chair, Panel on “Non-identity, Dis-identity, and Impersonality” Northeast Modern Language Association, 47th Annual Convention, Hartford, Connecticut, March 17-19, 2016.
Chair, Panel on “This outcome, that does not cease to continue: Affect, Trauma, and Memory in Contemporary Postcolonial Poetics,” a seminar on theory and comparative studies. Northeast Modern Language Association, 45th Annual Convention, Harrisburg, Pennsylania, April 3-6, 2014. Invited Co-chair: John Woznicki, Union County College.
Chair, Panel on “The Eros of Innovation,” panel organized by Prof. Jean Heuvig (University of Washington), Structures of Innovation: Modernist Studies Association international conference, University at Buffalo, October 6-9 2011.
Chair, Panel on “Slippery Signifiers,” panel on Paul Valery, James Joyce, and the Futurist Aesthetics. Graduate Symposium, English Department, University of Maine, April 30, 2011.
Chair, Panel on “Strange Visions: Versions of the Visual in Contemporary Women’s Cross-Genre Poetry,” organized by Prof. Laura Hinton (City College of New York), Lifting Belly High: A Conference on Women’s Poetry since 1900, Duquesne University, September 11-15, 2008.
Chair, Panel on “Language Poetry and Theory,” Poetry of the 1970s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 2008.
Chair, Panel on “New Narrative, New Sentence, New Left,” Poetry of the 1970s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 2008.
Chair, Panel on “Erotics, Embodiment, Negation,” Poetry of the 1970s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 2008.
Chair, Panel on “Gwendolyn Brooks, Poetry and Prose,” Poetries of the 1940s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 2004.
Invited responder
Respondent, A River Runs Around It, a play by Maulian Dana, The Cyrus Pavilion Theater, University of Maine, January 20, 2012.
Respondent and moderator, “Embargoed Voices: Poesia Ultima / Italian Poetry Now,” panel discussion on contemporary Italian poetry with Maria Attanasio, Giovanna Frene, Marco Giovenale, and Milli Graffi, Italian Cultural Institute of New York, May 26, 2009.
Respondent, Seminar on Modernism and Politics, Modernist Studies Association International Conference, Birmingham, U.K., September 2003.
Conference organization/coordination
Conference Steering Committee and conference organizer, National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1990s University of Maine, June 28-July 1, 2017. Collaborative work, with Ben Friedlander, Steve Evans, and Jennifer Moxley. Preparatory work began in 2016.
Conference Steering Committee and conference organizer, National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1980s.” University of Maine, June 2012. .Collaborative work with Steve Evans. Preparatory work began in 2011.
Conference Steering Committee, National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1970s.” University of Maine, Fall 2007-Summer 2008.
Conference Steering Committee, National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetries of the 1940s.” University of Maine, Fall 2003-Summer 2004.
Conference Organizer, Graduate Conference in Marxist Studies, University at Buffalo, Spring 1995.
Cultural events hosted, organized, and moderated
Host, organizer: two events with the Italian poet, editor, translator, and scholar Pina Piccolo, sponsored by the Department of English, the New Writing Series, and the Honors College. Pina Piccolo was scheduled to give a talk titled: “The poetry of migration, flight, displacement, sorrow and shame: a modern day Odyssey,” a talk on migration, human rights, and social activism across the Mediterranean and in Italy over the past ten years) followed by poetry reading and a multimedia presentation at the intersection of poetry, translation, and technology, on February 13, 2019. Both events were canceled because we had a snowstorm. Pina Piccolo, however, visited two seminars (ENG 440 and ENG 222), connected with several faculty and sat for an interview for the English graduate students’ magazine.
Host, organizer, and moderator: poet and scholar Mark Nowak’s conversation on social poetics, open to on campus and off campus participants. Event combined with Nowak’s seminar visit (ENG 271, ENG 381, ENG 529), April 21, 2017.
Host, organizer, and moderator: poet and scholar Robert Halpern’s conversation on queer poetics and affect theory, open to on campus and off campus participants. Event combined with Halpern’s seminar visit (ENG 271, ENG 381, ENG 529), March 24, 2017.
Host, organizer, and moderator: Mark Tabone (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) “Whither Utopia in the Twenty-First Century? Community, Corporations, and Colson Whitehead.” Lecture sponsored by the Department of English, University of Maine, October 27, 2014.
Host and organizer: Annette Kolodny (Professor Emerita of American Literature and Culture, University of Arizona): “Papal Bulls, the Doctrine of Discovery, and Penobscot Historiography,” a lecture on Penobscot Historiography. Interdisciplinary event involving the Penobscot Nation, the Native-American Studies Program, the Departments of English, History and Anthropology of the University of Maine. University of Maine on April 15, 2014.
Host, organizer, and moderator: “This configuration, at any moment”: A Poetics colloquium with poet and Temple University Professor Emerita Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Department of English, University of Maine, November 2, 2013.
Host, organizer, and moderator: Eileen Joy: “The Assignable Nothingness of All Swerve and the Work of Adjacency.” Lecture on literary theory and object-oriented philosophy. Department of English, University of Maine, October 8, 2013.
Host, organizer, and moderator: John Hyland, “The ‘Sound’ of Nation Language.” Lecture on African American and Anglophone Caribbean poetics. University of Maine, November 27, 2012.
Host, organizer, and moderator: Richard Owens, “Dissociations, Misreadings: The McCaffery-Prynne Debate.” Lecture on contemporary poetics. Department of English, University of Maine, April 15, 2011.
Host, organizer and moderator, James Wagner’s talk on poetics, English Department, University of Maine, April 1, 2011 (in conjunction with ENG 580).
Organizer, with Ben Friedlander and Steve Evans: A conversation on contemporary American poetics, FLARF, and Language Poetry with host poets Nada Gordon and Gary Sullivan. English Department, University of Maine, April 3, 2009 (in conjunction with ENG 649, ENG 480, ENG 222).
Host and organizer, Claudia Rankine’s conversation on documentary poetics, realist poetics, postcolonial poetics, poetry and photography, Department of English, University of Maine, March 24, 2009 (in conjunction with ENG 649).
Host and organizer, with Prof. Margery Irvine, Prof. Stacy Carson Hubbard’s talk on Edna St. Vincent Millay, Department of English, University of Maine, October 21, 2008 (in conjunction with ENG 244).
Host and organizer, Prof. Stacy Carson Hubbard’s lecture “‘Conscientious Inconsistency’: Marianne Moore’s Emersonian Poetics,” Department of English, University of Maine, Contemporary Discourses in Literary Theory and Scholarship Series, October 20, 2008.
Organizer and moderator, English Department symposium on Marianne Moore’s poetics, October 16, 2008.
Host, organizer, and moderator: poet and translator Tina Darragh, conversation on Language Poetry. Department of English, University of Maine, January 26, 2007 (in conjunction with ENG 649).
Host, organizer, and moderator: David Matlin, “Prisons and Democracy.” Lecture sponsored by the Marxist-Socialist Studies Series, University of Maine, October 18, 2007.
Curation of poetry readings and performance events
Chair, Plenary Poetry Reading by Myung-Mi Kim. National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1990s. University of Maine, July 1 2017.
Curation and organization: Laura Hinton’s multimedia performance piece, “Feminist Superhero: Adrienne Rich and Jayne Cortez.” National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1990s. University of Maine, June 30, 2017.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series, Mark Nowak’s poetry reading, April 20, 2017.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series, Rob Halpern’s poetry reading, March 23, 2017.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: Norma Cole’s poetry reading, New Writing Series, University of Maine, April 16, 2015.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: Jennifer Scappettone’s poetry reading. New Writing Series, University of Maine, April 21, 2014.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series, Julian Talamantez Brolaski and E. Tracy Grinnell’s poetry reading, University of Maine, March 28, 2013.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: Myung Mi Kim’s poetry reading. University of Maine, October 25 2012.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: Ernesto Livon-Grosman’s poetry reading. University of Maine, October 4, 2012.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: James Wagner’s poetry reading. University of Maine, March 31, 2011.
Curator and moderator, “Art, Fantasy, and Experience” with the poets Charles Bernstein, Elaine Equi, Nada Gordon, and Rod Smith, December 12, 2010. Event sponsored and hosted by the Rene and Chaim Gross Foundation (New York, NY). This event is part of the digital archives of poetry, University of Pennsylvania. http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Fantasy.php
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: Claudia Rankine’s poetry reading. University of Maine, March 25, 2009.
Chair, Plenary Poetry Reading by Nicole Brossard, Poetry of the 1970s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 2008.
Host and organizer, for the New Writing Series: Tina Darragh’s poetry reading. University of Maine, January 25, 2007.
Chair, Plenary Poetry Reading by Lyn Hejinian, Poetries of the 1940s, National Poetry Foundation International Conference, University of Maine, June 2004.
Poetry readings
Bilingual poetry reading: “Three Italian poets/six poems” a selection of WWI Italian poetry compiled for the Euphony Orono Chamber Choir Concert program, “We Are the Dead: The Legacy of Loss,” choral concert and poetry reading commemorating World War I, sponsored by the McGillicuddy Humanities Center symposium: War Without End: The Legacies of World War I. November 9 and 11, 2018. https://umaine.edu/mhc/event/war-without-end-choral-concert-and-poetry-reading/ and https://umaine.edu/news/blog/2018/11/02/concert-and-poetry-reading-opens-mcgillicuddy-humanities-center-symposiumov-9-and-nov-11/
Poetry reading: “Feminist Superhero: Adrienne Rich and Jayne Cortez” a multimedia performance piece curated by Laura Hinton in occasion of the National Poetry Foundation international conference, “Poetry of the 1990s. University of Maine, June 30, 2017.
Bilingual poetry reading: “Embargoed Voices: Poesia Ultima / Italian Poetry Now,” with Maria Attanasio, Giovanna Frene, Marco Giovenale, and Milli Graffi, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, New York, May 27, 2009.
Bilingual poetry reading: Italian Epigrams (co-translated and co-presented with Benjamin Friedlander), Terry Plunket Poetry Festival, University of Maine, Augusta, April 2004.
Professional activities
Advisory board of the Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (DiGeSt) a bi-annual, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the intersection of diversity and gender studies published by Ghent University, Belgium (January 2016—).
Juror, Portland Poet Laureate committee, May-June 2024.
Reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), May-June 2024.
Served on a committee reviewing and advising on grant proposals for the Collaborative Grants in American Literature.
Reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), February-April 2019.
Served on a committee reviewing and advising on grant proposals for the Convening Grants in Literature, Arts, Philosophy, and Politics.
External Reviewer, Assistant Professor Margaret Konkol’s candidacy for tenure and promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, Department of English, Old Dominion University. August 2023.
External Reviewer, Assistant Professor Magdalena Zurawski’s candidacy for tenure and promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Georgia. August 2018.
Fulbright Specialist, International Scholar, in gender theory, critical theory, and poetics, 2011-2016.
Reader and reviewer, Columbia University Press, Jennifer Scappettone’s book manuscript, Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice (2013).
External Reviewer, Assistant Professor Joel Bettridge’s candidacy for tenure and promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, Department of English, Portland State University, September 2011.
Referee Reader for Rutledge Critical Series (2023—); University of New Mexico Press (2023—); Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (2018—); Modernism/Modernity (2016—); Contemporary Women’s Writers (2014—); PMLA (2013—); Modern Philology (2010); Literature, Interpretation, Theory (2010—); and College Literature (2009—).
Service and Professional Activity
University of Maine
Faculty Senate, elected member, 2022—2024.
Fogler Library Committee, 2022—2024.
Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Academic Council, 2018-2020.
Vice-Provost of Research, University Research Council, 2016-2018.
Vice-Provost of Research, University of Maine Strategic Plan committee, 2016-2018.
Vice-Provost of Research, Graduate School Board Committee, S2014-S2016
Libra Fellowship Committee, 2013-2014.
Service and Outreach Committee, Faculty Senate, 2007-2008.
Committee on Committees, Faculty Senate, 2004-2005.
Faculty Senate, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Representative, 2004-2008.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Women and Gender Studies Steering Committee, 2012—present
Editorial Board, Paideuma, National Poetry Foundation, 2008—present
Chair, Tenure Review Committee Rosalie Purvis (ENG/THE), 2022-present
Chair, tenure Review Committee Kara Peruccio (HYT/WGS), 2022-present
Academic Council committee, 2018-2020.
Tenure review committee member, Lecturer MJ Sedlock’s reappointment, Department of Theatre and Performing Arts, S2019.
Member, Search Committee, Department of History Chair, 2016-2017.
External examiner and consultant, Critical Languages Program, 2000-2016.
Department of English
Committee and Administrative Service
Peer Committee, F2008—
Policy Advisory Committee, 2003-2004; 2011-2012; 2018—2020.
Coordinator, Graduate Studies Program, S2014-S2016.
Chair, Graduate Studies Committee, S2014-S2016.
Chair, Speakers and Special Events Committee, 2005-2006; 2008-2011.
Speakers and Special Events Committee, 2006-2007.
Graduate Studies Committee, 2011-2012, 2014-20016.
ENG 212 Curriculum Committee, 2011-2012.
MA Program, Comprehensive Exams Committee, F2002, S 2006, F2008, S2009, F2011, S2012, S2017.
Undergraduate Studies Committee, 2002-2005; F2016—current.
ENG 300 and 400 Assessment committee (2016—2019).
ENG 212 Curriculum Committee, 2011-2012.
Core Curriculum Committee, Undergraduate Studies, Fall 2004—current.
Tenure and Post-Tenure Reviews
Tenure review/Chair of tenure review committee, Kara Peruccio, F2022—
Tenure review/Chair of tenure review committee, Rosalie Purvis, F2022—
Tenure review, Jeremy Parker, F2022-S2024.
Tenure review, Lecturer Audrey Lee, F2019.
Tenure review, Visiting Assistant Professor Danielle Pafunda, F2018.
Tenure review committee member, Professor Jennifer Moxley, S2016.
Tenure review, Lecturer Deb Levine, S2017.
Tenure review, Lecturer Joanna Crouse, F2016.
Post Tenure review, Professor Tony Brinkley, S2012.
Tenure review committee member, Assistant Professor Charlsey Diaz, 2010-2011.
Tenure review committee member, Assistant Professor Dylan Dryer, 2008-2009.
Tenure review committee member, Assistant Professor Charlsey Diaz, F2008.
Professional Associations
Modern Language Association, 1995—
Modernist Studies Association, 2003—
British Association of American Studies, 2019—2021.
American Literature Association, 2007-2008; 2016-2017.
International Students Committee, English Department, University at Buffalo, 1995-1997.
