JEFFREY NEILSON Department of English, Brown University 70 Brown Street, Box 1852 Providence, Rhode Island 02912 Phone: 510-725-9695 [email protected] CURRENT POSITION Adjunct Faculty. Bryant University, Smithfield, Rhode Island. Fall 2013-Spring 2014 EDUCATION Ph.D. Brown University, Department of English (defense expected February 2014) M.A. Brown University, Department of English, 2011 B.A. University of California, Berkeley, English, 2003 Highest Honors in General Scholarship DISSERTATION Making a Living Poetry: The Process of Vocation in Postwar American Poetics Committee: Philip Gould (director), Deak Nabers, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, John Shoptaw SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS John Cargill MacMillan Graduate Fellowship, The Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University, 2012-2013 Lumen Christi Institute, Fellowship Award, University of California, Berkeley, August 5-9, 2013; Russell Hittinger’s seminar, “Catholic Social Thought: A Critical Investigation” School of Criticism and Theory, Scholarship Award, Cornell University, June 19-July 28, 2011; Webb Keane’s seminar, “Rethinking Ethics: Cognitive and Anthropological Approaches” First-Year Fellowship, 2007-2008, and Dissertation Fellowship, 2010-2012, Brown University Phi Beta Kappa, 2003 TEACHING AND RESEARCH FIELDS Modern and Contemporary American Poetry, 19th- and 20th-Century American Literature, Religion and Literature, Pragmatism, Jazz Studies, Ecological Aesthetics PUBLICATIONS “Robert Duncan’s Conversion to Poetry” (forthcoming, Contemporary Literature) “No Poetry Will Serve: The Cruel Optimism of Adrienne Rich’s Last Poems” (under review) PAPERS PRESENTED “Beyond the Buffered Self: Robert Duncan’s Post-Secular Community of Response.” Comparative Poetics Colloquium, Princeton University, “When ‘I’ Means ‘We’: Poetry and Social Life,” May 4, 2013 Neilson CV - 2 - “Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Adrienne Rich’s Interstitial Living, Lyric’s Cruel Optimism.” Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, Boston, March 2013 “Yusef Komunyakaa at the Jazz Workshop.” Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University, December 11, 2012 “The Sound of Ongoing Life: Paterson’s Indefinite Career and Pragmatic Vocation.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Providence, March 2012 “Grotesque Expression: Santayana and James on Whitman’s Poetic Religiosity.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Vancouver, March 2011 “Lucy Snowe’s Buried Letters: The Confessional Poetics of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, New Orleans, April 2010 “Looking Through One’s Legs: Emerson’s Haptic Eye, Keller’s Vibroscopic Body.” English Graduate Student Colloquium and Modern Culture Workshop. Brown University, 2009 PANELS ORGANIZED “Nineteenth-Century Modernist Poetics.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Vancouver, March 2011 COURSES TAUGHT Introduction to Literary Studies. Bryant University, Fall 2013-Spring 2014. Designed two sections of a freshman-level introduction to short fiction, the novel, drama, and poetry. Putting Yourself Into Words. Brown University, Summer 2013. Pre-college composition seminar. Songs of the Self: Poetry as a Way of Life. Brown University, Summer 2012. Undergraduate elective open to both lower- and upper-division students. Writing for College and Beyond. Department of Continuing Studies online program, Brown University, Summer 2011. Teaching assistant; online pre-college composition course. Putting Ideas Into Words. Brown University, Summer 2010. Pre-college composition seminar. Religious Experience in American Lyric Poetry. Brown University, Spring 2010. Undergraduate elective open to both lower- and upper-division students. Critical Reading and Writing I: The Academic Essay. Brown University, Fall 2009. Academic writing course with thematic focus intended primarily for first-year undergraduates. Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: American Fiction and the Sea. Teaching Assistant to Professor Stuart Burrows. Brown University, Spring 2009. Undergraduate lecture course. Neilson CV - 3 - Cultures and Countercultures: The American Novel After 1945. Teaching Assistant to Professor Deak Nabers. Brown University, Fall 2008. Survey course for English majors. RELATED TRAINING AND EXEPRIENCE Writing Associate, Brown University Writing Center, October 2013-present Americanist Studies Dissertation Workshop, English Department, Brown University and Harvard University, 2011-present Women Writer’s Project (digital archive), Brown University, Staff Member, 2008-2012 Mellon Graduate Workshop, Department of Religious Studies, Brown University, 2009-2010 Certificate I (Teaching Seminar), The Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown, 2010 Japan Exchange Teaching (JET) Program, Assistant Language Teacher, Wakayama City, Japan, 2003-2006 ACADEMIC SERVICE Graduate Committee, Department of English, Brown University, 2010-present Coordinating Assistant, Close Encounters (lecture and performance series): “Jazz at the Intersection of the Performing and Visual Arts,” “Millennial Poetics from the Neo Garde,” and “Soundscapes from Late Jazz,” Brown University, Fall 2012 Assistant and Coordinator, Graduate Student Colloquium, Department of English, Brown University, 2008-2012 Zucker Graduate Lecture Committee, Brown University, Department of English, 2009-2010 PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS Modern Language Association Northeast Modern Language Association American Comparative Literature Association LANGUAGES Japanese (speaking and reading knowledge) German (reading knowledge) Spanish (reading knowledge) REFERENCES Philip Gould Chair, Department of English, Brown University Nicholas Brown Professor of Oratory and Belles Lettres (401) 863-3736 [email protected] Barbara Herrnstein Smith Braxton Craven Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and English, Duke University Neilson CV - 4 - Distinguished Professor of English, Brown University (2003-2011) (919) 684-3970 [email protected] Deak Nabers Associate Professor of English, Brown University (401) 863-2393 [email protected] John Shoptaw Continuing Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley (510) 642-3467 (department phone) [email protected] Lawrence Stanley Senior Lecturer in English, Brown University (401) 863-3623 [email protected] .