CARISSA TURNER SMITH P. O. Box 118087 Charleston Southern University Charleston, SC 29423 (843) 863-7773 • [email protected]

EMPLOYMENT Professor of English, Charleston Southern University, 2016-present and Writing Center Director, Charleston Southern University, 2017-present Associate Professor of English, Charleston Southern University, 2013-2016 Assistant Professor of English, Charleston Southern University, 2008-2013 Lecturer in English, Penn State University, 2007-2008 Teaching Assistant, Penn State University, 2001-2007

EDUCATION

Ph.D. English, The Pennsylvania State University, 2007 M.A. English, The Pennsylvania State University, 2003 B.A. English with minor in Spanish, Summa Cum Laude, Wheaton College (IL), 2001

SCHOLARSHIP

Book Cyborg Saints: Religion and Posthumanism in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction (September 2019, Routledge)

Journal Articles

“‘We are none of us just one thing’: The Intersectionality and Intersubjectivity of Rachel Hartman’s Half- Dragon Saints.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 36, no. 2, 2017, pp. 401-422.

“Relics and Intersubjectivity in the Harry Potter Series and The Castle Behind Thorns.” Literature and Theology, vol. 30, no. 2, 2016, pp. 215-232.

“D. J. Waldie’s Holy Land: Redeeming the Spiritual Geography of Suburbia.” Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature, vol. 63, no. 4, 2011, pp. 307-324.

“‘Placing’ the Spiritual Metaphors of Contemporary Women Writers: Sue Monk Kidd and Kathleen Norris.” Literature and Belief, vol. 27, no. 2, 2008, pp. 1-28.

“Women’s Spiritual Geographies of the African Diaspora: Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow.” African American Review, vol. 42, no. 3-4, 2008, pp. 715-729.

Essays in Edited Collections “Postsecular Cosplay, Fundamentalism, and Martyrdom in Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers & Saints.” Teens and the New Religious Landscape: Essays on Contemporary Young Adult Fiction, edited by Jacob Stratman, McFarland, 2018.

“Reading in the Dark: The Unheimlich Underworld of Merrie Haskell’s The Princess Curse.” The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult Literature: Essays on Stories from Grimm to Gaiman, edited by Tanya Jones and Joseph Abbruscato, McFarland, 2014, pp. 181-200.

“Embodying the Postmetropolis in Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron and Sapphique.” Brave New Teenagers: Dystopian Young Adult Fiction, edited by Balaka Basu, Katherine R. Broad, and Carrie Hintz, Children’s Literature and Culture Series, Routledge, 2013, pp. 51-65.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

“Arcadia, the App: Memory, Re-reading, and the Codex” Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, Summer 2019 “Can These Dry Stones Live? Relics and Fossils in Melville’s Clarel” Conference on Christianity and Literature, Harvard Divinity School, Spring 2019 “The Time Travel of Liturgy in Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book” Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, , Spring 2018 “Holy Dog!: Adam Gidwitz’s The Inquisitor’s Tale and Posthuman Hagiography as an Alternative to Tolerance Discourse” American Literature Association, Boston, MA, Spring 2017 “Postsecular, Posthumanist Pilgrimage in The Head of the Saint” Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, , Spring 2017 “The Bearded Virgin Martyr and the Gaze in Linda Medley's Castle Waiting“ Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, Montreat College, Spring 2016 “The Porous Self, the Buffered Self, and the Conversion Narrative: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Living with a Wild God” Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, Charleston Southern University, Spring 2015 “The Problem of Narrating from Paradise: Spiritual Autobiography and the Metafictional Conversion Narrative” Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Spring 2014 “Intertextuality and The Imitation: Negotiating with Thomas à Kempis in Spiritual Autobiographies” Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, Anderson University, Spring 2012 “Lighting Out for YA Territory: Twain’s Influence on Two Twenty-First-Century Young Adult Novels” South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, Fall 2010 “D. J. Waldie’s Holy Land: Redeeming the Spiritual Geography of Suburbia” Midwest Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature, Wheaton College, Fall 2009 “Geographical Expatriation and Spiritual Re-matriation in H.D.’s The Gift” Society for the Study of American Women Writers Third International Conference, Philadelphia, Fall 2006 “Mapping Spirituality in Academia” Women’s Studies Graduate Organization Conference, Penn State University, Spring 2005 “Contemporary American Women Writers and the Spiritual Geography of the Cloister” American Literature Association Conference, San Francisco, Spring 2004 “Conversion Takes Place: Religious Mobility in the Dakotan Landscapes of Louise Erdrich and Kathleen Norris” Society for the Study of American Women Writers Second International Conference, Ft. Worth, Fall 2003

INVITED TALKS

“Saints and Pancake People: Reading Attentively in the 21st Century” Public Theology Lecture, Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul, Charleston, SC, October 2018 “Reading for the Stupocalypse” Sigma Tau Delta Symposium, Chattanooga, Tennessee, October 2015 “Integrating Faith and Learning” Quality Enhancement Plan Seminar, Rome, Georgia, October 2014

JOURNAL-RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• Associate Editor for Arts and Humanities, Christian Scholar’s Review (April 2016-present) • Publications Committee, Conference on Christianity and Literature (2015-present) • Referee (2008-present) o African American Review o Christian Scholar’s Review o Christianity and Literature o MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States) o Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism o Journal of Africana Religions o Papers on Language and Literature o South Atlantic Review o Teaching American Literature • Editor, newsletter of Penn State’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities (2002-2004)

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Conference on Christianity and Literature • Vice President, 2019-present • Southeast Regional Chair, 2017-2019 • Regional Conference Chair, Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature, 2015 • Publications Committee, 2015-present (Chair, 2016-present) FELLOWSHIPS, SEMINARS, AND WORKSHOPS

• The Hospitable Text: New Approaches to Religion and Literature (Notre Dame Centre, London, Summer 2011) • Erasmus Institute Graduate Fellow in English (University of Notre Dame, Summer 2005) • Pew Younger Scholars Graduate Summer Seminar in English (University of Notre Dame, Summer 2002)

OTHER TRAINING Quality Matters: Certificate, Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (Summer 2019)

UNIVERSITY SERVICE

• Faculty Co-Sponsor, Sigma Tau Delta, Charleston Southern University Chapter, 2010-present • First Look (English Department) and Saturday Visit (Faith Integration) presentations for prospective students, 2009-present • Sandwich-It-In Presentations for the local retirement community, 2009-present • Honors Council, 2015-2017 • Christian Leadership Council (formerly the Faith and Learning Committee), 2011-2018 • Global Education Committee, 2014-2016 • Communications Search Committee, 2014 • General Education Committee, 2012-2013, 2018-2019 • GNED 111 Course Creation, 2011-2013 • English Department Search Committee, 2010-2011, 2017-2019 • English Department Textbook Selection Committee, 2010-2011 • Center for Excellence in Teaching Panel: "Integrating Faith and Learning: What Works for Me," Spring 2010 • Faith and Learning Committee, 2009-2011 • Faculty Welfare Committee, 2008-2011

CHURCH INVOLVEMENT AND SERVICE

Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul • Choir member • Vestry member Volunteer Service • 1Charleston (racial reconciliation ministry) • Bridge Church (homeless ministry) • Board Member, Charleston Folk Contra Dance • Performer, Uibh Fhaili Academy of Irish Dance

AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST

Christianity and literature, spiritual autobiography, 19th and 20th century American literature, African American literature, religion and literature, literature and geography, literary theory, young adult literature