faculty

Meet our faculty

Barbara Burkhardt
Assistant Professor of English
Ph.D. English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Email: bburk1@uis.edu
Phone: (217) 206-6779
Office: UHB 3050
Website: www.aliterarylife.com

Teaching Concentration: American Literature from 1865 to 1915 with emphasis on the novel, postmodern fiction, Midwestern literature, and American women writers.

Courses: Graduate seminars in Postmodern Fiction, Writers of The New Yorker, and Mark Twain; American Novel 1865-1915; Contemporary American Novel; American Short Story; Midwestern Literature.

Papers:

Modern Language Association Convention:

"Nabokov and The New Yorker: The Letters of Vladimir Nabokov and William Maxwell"
"'Langston Hughes' Blues Lyrics and the Songs of Bessie Smith"

Midwest Modern Language Association:

"'The Natural History of Home': William Maxwell's Midwestern Town in Time Will Darken It"
"Chicago, the Midwest and the World Beyond in William Maxwell's The Folded Leaf"

College English Association:

"'The Saving Grace of Unimportance': William Maxwell's Early-Century Prairiescape."

Conference of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature:

"The Blues Woman In Langston Hughes' Not Without Laughter"
"All the Days and Nights: The Short Fiction of William Maxwell"
"The Midwesterner Abroad: William Maxwell's The Chateau"
"Memory and Metafiction in William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow"

Publications:

William Maxwell: A Literary Life. University of Illinois Press, 2005.
"Eliza Farnham," "Langston Hughes," "William Maxwell," "Carl Van Vechten." The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature. Indiana University Press. 2001.
"The Blues Woman in Langston Hughes' Not Without Laughter." MidAmerica. XXIII (1996). Midwestern Press. The Center for the Study of Midwestern Literature and Culture. East Lansing, Michigan.
"Behind the Writer's Window: Visiting with William Maxwell." Tamaqua. 3.2 (Fall 1992); 71-87. Reviews in The San Francisco Chronicle, Illinois Issues, Illinois Times, The James Jones Newsletter.