Christine Grogan

Biography

​Three degrees, six states, and 20 years later, I am happy to be back at my alma mater as an assistant professor of English where I teach courses in writing and literature and advise first-year students for the Dover campus of the UD Associate in Arts Program. 

My book on father-daughter incest and CPTSD in twentieth-century American literature was recently published with Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. I've published articles on works including Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, and Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina. My most recent article on Kay Boyle's and Katherine Anne Porter's contribution to transition was published in South Central Review. I am currently researching for my second book, which focuses on fiction by African women writers.

I serve as president of the Katherine Anne Porter Society and a Nominations Elections Committee and Advisory Board Member of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Additionally, I've participated with Open Streets Dover, Delaware Department of Natural Resources coastal events, and College Application Month. My one-year-old golden retriever, Callie Russell (named for Katherine Anne Porter), sometimes accompanies me to these community services.

Courses Taught

Seminar in Composition
American Literature
Approaches to Literature
Varying Authors, Themes, and Movements: Contemporary Novels by African Women

Education

Ph.D., English, and Certificate in Women's Studies, University of South Florida
M.A., English, University of Richmond
B.A., English & Business and Technical Writing, University of Delaware, magna cum laude

Book

Father-Daughter Incest in Twentieth-Century American Literature: The Complex Trauma of the Wound and the Voiceless. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016.

Articles

“In transition: Catholic Overtones in Kay Boyle’s ‘Theme’ and Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.’” South Central Review 35.2. (2018): 103-116.

“Embodying Conflicted Faith and Questionable Grace: The Women of Robert Stone’s ‘Helping’ and ‘Miserere.’” Literature and Belief 37.1 (2017): 25-47.

“Authorship and Artistry: Zelda Fitzgerald’s ‘A Millionaire's Girl’ and ‘Miss Ella.’” The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review 13 (2015): 110-29. 

“Teaching Incest, the Erotic, and Lesbianism; or, The Troubles Teaching Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina and Calixthe Beyala’s Your Name Shall Be Tanga.” Sarah Namulondo, co-author. EAPSU Online: A Journal of Critical and Creative Work 11 (2014): 94-124.

“Lolita Revisited: Reading Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.” Women’s Studies: An Inter-disciplinary Journal 43.1 (2014): 52-72.

“‘Naw You Ain’t No Man’: Rereading the Patriarchal Phallocentrism in the Trueblood Episode of Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Feminist Studies in English Literature 21.1 (2013): 39-66.

Book Reviews

Review of The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald, by Deborah Pike. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 37.1 (2018): 223-25. (invited)

Review of Wrangling Women: Humor and Gender in the American West, by Kristin M. McAndrews. RMMLA 61.2 (2007): 127-30. 

Forthcoming Articles

“Visions and Revisions in Katherine Anne Porter's ‘The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.’” Mississippi Quarterly

“Parker’s Black? A Rereading of Race in Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Parker’s Back.’” Renascence

Presentations

“In transition: Katherine Anne Porter and Kay Boyle.” American Literature Association (ALA) Conference, Boston, MA, May 2017

“The Body as Site of Healing in Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina and Calixthe Beyala’s Your Name Shall Be Tanga.” Co-authored by Sarah Namulondo. RMMLA Convention, Boulder, CO, October 2012

“How Brother Killed the Pregnant Rabbit: Reflections on ‘The Grave’ and ‘How Baby Talked to the Fairies.’” Round Table Discussion on “‘The Downward Path’: Depictions of Childhood in Katherine Anne Porter's Fiction.” ALA Conference, San Francisco, CA, May 2010 (Invited)

“‘But She Was Too Free’: Aunt Amy’s Mysterious Hemorrhage in Porter’s ‘Old Mortality.’” ALA Conference, Boston, MA, May 2009

“Single and Fabulous?: The Golden Girls of Sex and the City.” Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations, San Francisco, CA, March 2008

“Daddy’s Girls: Phallic Power and Perverse Paternity in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night and Mailer’s An American Dream.” Norman Mailer Society Conference, Provincetown, MA, October 2007

“A Reading of ‘That Tree’: Katherine Anne Porter as Expatriate.” ALA Conference, Boston, MA, May 2007