Curriculum Vitae
Howard - CV (March 2024).pdfEDUCATION
Ph.D. in English and American Literature, Washington University in St. Louis, 2023
Dissertation: Pragmatic Ambiguities: Aphoristic Thinking in the American Nineteenth Century
Fulbright Research Fellow, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 2020–21
M.A. in English and American Literature, Washington University in St. Louis, 2019
M.A. in English Literature, Michigan State University, 2015
B.A. in English and Biblical Studies, summa cum laude, Welch College, 2012
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
Assistant Professor, Program in Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas, Bilkent University, 2023–present
Faculty Affiliate, Department of American Culture and Literature, 2023–present
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Thoreau’s ‘Radicle’ Empiricism: Plant-Thinking in the Late Journal,” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (forthcoming).
“Thoreau’s Arboreal Encounters and Aphoristic Forest Thinking,” Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, vol. 25, no. 4, 2021, pp. 390–402 (also available online).
Manuscripts in Submission
“‘A Penumbra of Vagueness’: Reading Du Bois’s ‘Double-Consciousness’ Aphoristically,” African American Review (currently under review).
“‘Two Stories Tangled Together’: The Double Brain, Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins,” Nineteenth-Century Literature (currently under review).
Digital Projects
ChatHDT: A small language model (SLM) trained on the 1906 edition of The Journal of Henry David Thoreau. The goal of this project is to construct a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) for pedagogical use, allowing students to converse with Thoreau’s Journal. In partnership with Tumaini Ussiri (Humanities Digital Workshop, Washington University in St. Louis). Currently under development.
Public-Facing Writing
“Introduction to ‘Emerson and AI,’” The Transparent Eyeball (Emerson Society blog), January 2024. Online at: https://emersonsociety.org/introduction-to-emerson-and-ai/.
AWARDS, GRANTS, & FELLOWSHIPS
Modern Language Association Travel Grant, 2023
Short-Term Fellowship, The Huntington Library, 2022–23
Dissertation Fellowship, Washington University in St. Louis, 2022–23
Graduate Student/Early Career Workshop, Mark Twain Circle of America, 2022
Dickinson Critical Institute, Emily Dickinson International Society, 2022
C19: Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Travel Grant, 2022
Heidelberg Center for American Studies Spring Academy, Heidelberg Universität, 2022
Fulbright Research Fellowship, Germany, 2020–21
Cornelison English Prize, 1st Place, for best essay written by a graduate student during coursework, Washington University in St. Louis, 2020
National Science Foundation Travel Grant, 2019
Society for Literature, Science & the Arts Travel Grant, 2019
DAAD University Summer Course Grant, for language classes in Berlin, Germany, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service), 2019
Somers Excellence in Teaching Award, Michigan State University, 2015
Summer Support Fellowship, Michigan State University, 2014
Best Graduate Essay Award, Michigan College English Association, 2012
Picirilli-Outlaw Greek Award, for best GPA in two years of Koine Greek language classes, Welch College, 2011
INVITED TALKS
“Aphorismus and Nineteenth-Century American Literature: Reading ‘Double-Consciousness’ Aphoristically,” Cornell University Transatlantic Research Colloquium (co-sponsored by Humboldt Universität Berlin), Ithaca, NY, September 9–11, 2022.
CONFERENCE ACTIVITY
Panels Organized
“Emerson and William James” (co-sponsored by the William James Society and Ralph Waldo Emerson Society), American Literature Association, Chicago, IL, May 23–26, 2024.
“Endlessness: Open-ended Interpretation and the Affordances of Short Forms,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Pasadena, CA, March 14–16, 2024.
“Endless Literary Productions and Ongoing Multiplicities,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Pasadena, CA, March 14–16, 2024.
“W. E. B. Du Bois’s Reconstruction of Language,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Coral Gables, FL, March 31–April 2, 2022.
Papers Presented
“William James’s Anesthetic Reading: Open-ended Interpretation on Nitrous Oxide” (Henry James Society panel), American Literature Association, Chicago, IL, May 23–26, 2024.
“Aphoristic Science: Poetry, Empiricism, and Short Forms in Nineteenth-Century Ecology,” International Conference of Three Societies on Literature and Science (British Society for Literature and Science; European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts; Commission on Science and Literature), Birmingham, UK, April 10–12, 2024.
“Endlessly Rereading Thoreau’s Journalistic Fragments,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Pasadena, CA, March 14–16, 2024.
“Feeling Thoreau’s Radicle Empiricism” (Henry David Thoreau Society panel), Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, PA, January 4–7, 2024.
“Thoreau’s Sudelbücher: His Journal as ‘Waste-Book’,” British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Bristol, UK, December 1–2, 2023.
“Journalistic Ecology: ‘Radicle Empiricism’ in Thoreau’s Journal Manuscript,” Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Portland, OR, July 9–12, 2023.
“Du Bois in Berlin, Du Bois in Atlanta: The Affect of Exile in The Souls of Black Folk” (Margaret Fuller Society panel), Modern Language Association, San Francisco, CA, January 5–8, 2023.
“‘Two Stories Tangled Together’: The Double Brain, Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins,” International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies, Elmira, NY, August 4–6, 2022.
“‘Can you render my Pencil?’: Dickinson's Aphoristic Prose and Affective Experience,” Emily Dickinson International Society, Seville, Spain, July 12–14, 2022.
“Aphoristic Emerson and the German Aphorismus” (Ralph Waldo Emerson Society panel), Thoreau Annual Gathering, Concord, MA, July 6–10, 2022.
“‘A Penumbra of Vagueness’: W. E. B. Du Bois's Aphoristic Reconstructions in The Souls of Black Folk,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Coral Gables, FL, March 31–April 2, 2022.
“Thoreau’s Arboreal Encounters: A Transatlantic Re-Vision,” British Association for American Studies, virtual due to COVID-19, April 7–11, 2021.
“Thoreau’s Radicle Empiricism: Arboreal Encounters and the Posthuman Forest,” European Society for Literature, Science & the Arts, Bergen, Norway, March 4–5, 2021.
“Thinking Like a Tree: Human Cognition and Speculative Forest Thinking,” European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment, Granada, Spain, 2020 (canceled due to COVID-19).
“‘These Brainless, Stationary Trunks Are Protecting Each Other’: Speculative Forest Thinking in the Anthropocene,” European Society for Literature, Science & the Arts, Katowice, Poland, June 17–20, 2020.
“‘Experience Is Forever in Motion’: The Divided Brain and Experimental Thinking,” Society for Literature, Science & the Arts, Irvine, CA, November 7–9, 2019.
“Crossing the Border between Reason and Intoxication: William James on Nitrous Oxide,” Crossing the Borders of Creation and Critique Conference, St. Louis, MO, March 1, 2019.
“Literature as ‘Out of Mind’ Experience,” Society for Literature, Science & the Arts, Toronto, Canada, November 15–18, 2018.
“‘Creatures of Habit’: The Role of Habits in Short Story Character Creation,” American Literature Association Symposium, Savannah, GA, October 20–22, 2016.
“‘A Collective Murmur Goes Up from Us’: Vicarious Trauma as Motivation in The Handmaid's Tale,” American Literature Association, Boston, MA, May 20–24, 2015.
“William James Visits Roderick Usher: Literature as Translation of American Psychology,” Midwest Conference on Christianity and Literature, Wheaton, IL, March 20–21, 2014.
“‘Give Me My Leg!’: The Point of Tension in O’Connor’s ‘Good Country People,’” Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, Louisville, KY, February 21–23, 2013.
“‘The World Will Burn Green’: Survival of Morality in Grendel,” Michigan College English Association, Grand Rapids, MI, October 26, 2012.
Discussant
“How to Apply for Library Research Fellowships,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Pasadena, CA, March 14–16, 2024.
“Supporting Learning on the Inside: Library Services for Jackson College Students in Prison,” National Conference on Higher Education in Prison, Nashville, TN, November 3–6, 2016.
CAMPUS TALKS
Bilkent University
“‘Radicle’ Empiricism: Plant-Thinking in Henry David Thoreau’s Journal,” Program in Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas Colloquium, February 21, 2024.
Washington University in St. Louis
“ChatGPT and the Future of Nineteenth-Century American Literature,” Department of English, January 20, 2023.
“The Centrifugal Aphorism: Tracing a Transatlantic Form in the Nineteenth Century,” Department of English Graduate Student Colloquium, November 18, 2022.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Bilkent University, Program in Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas
Literature and Science from Shakespeare to Today (Spring 2024)
Civil Disobedience in the Ancient World (Fall 2023)
Freie Universität Berlin, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies
A Genealogy of the Human Mind: Tracing Intelligence Discourses from Locke to Neoliberalism (MA Seminar, co-taught with Maxi Albrecht, Winter 2021–22)
Washington University in St. Louis, Department of English
Writing 1: Technology & Selfhood (Fall 2020)
Morality and Markets (TA for Abram Van Engen and Peter Baumgarden, Spring 2020)
Making it New: Emerson and the American Renaissance, 1836-1860 (TA for Robert Milder, Fall 2019)
St. Louis Community College, Department of English
College Composition I (Fall 2019)
College Composition II (Spring 2020, Fall 2019)
Jackson College, Prison Education Initiative (all courses taught in state prisons)
Writing Experience I (Fall 2016, Summer 2016, Fall 2015)
Cultural Connections (Summer 2017, Winter 2017, Fall 2016)
Poetry and Drama (Winter 2017, Winter 2016)
Technical & Business Communication (Summer 2017)
World Literature (Summer 2017)
Jackson College, Department of Liberal Arts
Introduction to College Writing (Fall 2016, Winter 2016)
Writing Experience I (Fall 2016, Winter 2016)
Writing Experience II (Summer 2017, Winter 2016, Fall 2015)
Cultural Connections (Winter 2017)
Davenport University, Department of English & Communications
Composition (Fall 2016, Fall 2015)
Advanced Composition (Winter 2017, Fall 2016, Winter 2016, Fall 2015)
Professional Writing (Fall 2016, Summer 2016)
Spring Arbor University, Department of English
College Writing (Fall 2016)
Michigan State University, Department of English
Michigan: The Life and Times of Where You Are (TA for Edward Watts, Winter 2015)
“Race” and “Culture” in U.S. Literature and Film (TA for Scott Michaelsen, Fall 2014)
Popular Culture in Global Perspective (TA for David Stowe, Winter 2014)
The Literature and Culture of Sports (TA for Stephen Arch, Fall 2013)
SERVICE TO PROFESSION
American Literature Association Organizer, William James Society, 2023–present
Ralph Waldo Emerson Society
Media Committee, 2023–present
Graduate Student Award Judge, 2024
Editor, The Transparent Eyeball (blog), Series 7: “Emerson and AI,” 2024
DEPARTMENTAL/UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Bilkent University
Pedagogy Committee, 2023–present
Washington University in St. Louis
WashU Graduate Student Senate
Co-President, 2019–2020
Department Senator, 2018–2019
Legislative Concerns Committee, 2018–2019
WashU Professional and Graduate Student Coordinating Committee, 2019–2020
WashU Graduate Professional Council, 2018–2020
WashU Graduate School of Arts & Science Graduate Council, 2018–2020
Michigan State University
Executive Board Member, MSU College of Arts & Letters Alumni Association, 2014–2016
MSU Council of Graduate Students
Department Representative, 2014–2015
University Committee on Curriculum, 2014–2015
Chair, University Student Commission, City of East Lansing, 2014–2015
Executive Board Member, MSU Association of English Graduate Students, 2014–2015
LANGUAGES
German: advanced reading and speaking proficiency (CEFR B2)
Turkish: introductory proficiency (CEFR A1)
Ancient Greek: can read with dictionary
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS & AFFILIATIONS
US-Based
International
American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT)
British Association of Nineteenth-Century Americanists (BrANCA)
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien (German Association for American Studies, DGfA)
European Society for Literature, Science & the Arts (SLSAeu)