Assistant Professor, English
Contact Information
Email: abryan24@gmu.edu
Phone: 703.993.1110
Mailstop: English Department, MSN 3E4
Campus: Fairfax
Office: Horizon Hall 4202
Biography
Amanda Bryan received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and teaches composition and literature at 麻豆视频. Her research focuses on postcolonial studies, Anglophone Caribbean studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She has been published in the Journal of West Indian Literature and Caribbean Quarterly.
Current Research
My current research interests include how postcolonial cultural studies (including, but not limited to, sexuality studies, women and gender studies, and class theory) intersects with indigenous research methods and how the teaching of both can enhance ideas of belonging and community.
Selected Publications
鈥淓mbodied Errantry: Aldrick鈥檚 Relational Masculinity in The Dragon Can鈥檛 Dance.鈥 Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, forthcoming.
鈥淭racing Errantry: Tan-Tan鈥檚 Path to Personal Survival in Midnight Robber.鈥 Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 4, November 2021, pp. 411-426.
鈥溾楾he thing relayed as well as the thing related鈥: Constructing Female Strength through Errantry in Nalo Hopkinson鈥檚 鈥淩obber Queen鈥 Folktales.鈥 Journal of West Indian Literature, vol. 29, no. 2, April 2021, pp. 90-107.
鈥淒ecolonization and Mysticism in William Butler Yeats鈥檚 The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose.鈥 Irish Studies Review, vol. 23, February 2015, pp. 68-89.
鈥淎lice鈥檚 Struggle with Imperialism: Undermining the British Empire through Alice鈥檚 Adventures in Wonderland.鈥 The Final Chapters: Concluding Papers of The Journal of Children鈥檚 Literature Studies, vol.9, issue 3, Wizard鈥檚 Tower Press, London, October 2013, pp. 22-32.
Courses Taught
Composition鈥擡NGH 101
My course highlights the connections between rhetoric, public writing, and inquiry-based research. Students practice writing as a learnable skill through developing narrative arguments, research arguments, and a genre/audience revision project. The course further identifies writing as a process through scaffolded writing activities and reflective writing.
Texts and Contexts: Caribbean Women Writers 鈥 ENGH 202
This 鈥渢exts and contexts鈥 course centers the work that women writers perform (in both the sense of 鈥渁ccomplish鈥 and 鈥渁cting鈥) in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. We discuss topics that highlight the positions, benefits, and difficulties for women in the Caribbean, largely informed by Black feminist theory and postcolonial feminism. More broadly, we develop appreciations for and understandings of literature, literary elements, and literary criticisms. Specifically, how cultural components appear and inform one another across texts.
Advanced Composition - ENGH 302
My course works through the intensive process of a semester-long research project, specific to students' discipline expectations. Students practice building multiple research logs (including exigence, keywords, research questions, new offerings, and syntheses) with the goal of composing genre-specific literature reviews and audience-specific advocacy letters.
Dimensions of Writing and Literature - ENGH 305
My course teaches students the conventions of writing in literary studies while emphasizing writing processes. Students develop interpretive skills for further study in the English major through the teaching of in-depth close reading, intertextual analysis, and critical reading in scholarship, culminating in an extensive research portfolio.
Reading the Arts: Postcolonial Creative Cultures - HNRS 122
My honors seminar focuses on instilling inquiry and collaboration as bedrocks of higher learning through analyzing the questions raised by colonial and postcolonial creative works (prose, poetry, drama, visual art and vocal art). Most inquiries are informed by texts created both during colonization in response to imperialism and those composed 鈥減ost-colonization,鈥 which analyze the effects of colonial power. The course鈥檚 apex is a collaborative artistic project and presentation of a postcolonial concept.
Education
PhD, English, University of North Carolina鈥擥reensboro, 2019
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate: Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2019
MA, English, North Carolina State University, 2013
BA, English and Sociology, University of Sioux Falls, 2010, summa cum laude
Recent Presentation
鈥淕eneric Errantry: Writing to Right Patriarchal Control of Female Sexuality in Literature.鈥&苍产蝉辫;Caribbean Studies Forum Conference, University of Belize, Belmopan, October 2019.
鈥淢asculine Identity: Moving Through Calvary Hill in The Dragon Can鈥檛 Dance.鈥&苍产蝉辫;37th Annual West Indian Literature Conference, University of Miami, October 2018.
鈥淐lassed Identity: Tracking Stasis in A House for Mr. Biswas.鈥&苍产蝉辫;Caribbean Studies Conference, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, April 2018.
鈥溾楾he thing related as well as the thing relayed鈥: Female Strength and Knowledge in 鈥楾an-Tan the Robber Queen鈥 Folktales.鈥&苍产蝉辫;Caribbean Studies Forum Conference, University of Belize and East Carolina University, Belmopan, March 2018.