Classical AB, St. Louis University (magna cum laude)
MA (medieval literature) and Ph.D (modern literature), The University of Connecticut

My teaching career began in Notre Dame University's interdisciplinary Collegiate Seminar Program and in The Program on Non-Violence (1970-74). At Binghamton University (1974-86), as Assistant and tenured Associate Professor, I taught interdisciplinary courses in Women\'s Studies, and both graduate and undergraduate courses in the English Department. From 1986-2002, I held the inaugural Louise Rosenfield Noun endowed Chair at Grinnell College, founding The Noun Program in Women's Studies and directing its various initiatives.
In addition to published poetry, essays on modernist poets, playwrights, fiction writers and multimedia artists, my books include: Protean Poetic: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath (U. Missouri, 1980); co-edited Women's Writing in Exile (U. North Carolina, 1989); edited Silence and Power: A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes (Southern Illinois U. Press, 1991). My selection of letters from two American expatriates, Black Walking: Selected Letters of Djuna Barnes to Emily Holmes Coleman, 1934-38, was published by Wagenbach (Im Dunkeln Gehn, Berlin, 2002) and by Archinto (Camminare nel Buio, Milan, 2004). The letters will be published in English. Current books in progress include the creative non-fiction, Sweeping up the Heart, and a chapbook of poetry. Longer range plans include a book on multi-media artist, Charles Henri Ford.
Since assuming the post of Caroline Werner Gannett Professor, my teaching interests often go hand-in-hand with scholarly research and presentations, (e.g., Society for Science, Literature and the Arts panel, "Cultural Uses of the New Cartographies," Amsterdam, June, 2006; and the panel, “Moving Out There: Strategies for Re-Imagining Academic Spaces” for the international, interdisciplinary conference,“Defining Space” at University College-Dublin, October 15-17, 2007)
Recent poetry publications—in disClosure, Janus Head and Nebula, as well as various collections—anticipate the book of poems that I am shaping.
My interests have always ranged widely across modern and contemporary literatures, including revisions of modernism; contemporary poetry and poetics; feminist theory; life-writing and select diasporic literatures. My regular courses are “Maps, Spaces and Places” and “21st Century Autobiography.” New directions in teaching since 2006 include interdisciplinary collaborations within the Caroline Werner Gannett Project : “Visionaries in Motion,” a co-taught course that features student interviews of the Gannett speakers; and the multidisciplinary course, “Truth and Consequences: Studies in Disciplinary Evidence.” See www.cwgp.org for additional information.

I have held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council on Learned Societies, the Getty Foundation, the Ford Foundation (co-participant) and was chosen for a residency at the Rockefeller Center’s Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy.

(see information above for books, etc)