Biography
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A native of Pennsylvania, James Emmett Ryan, Associate Professor, studied English literature and political science at the University of Pennsylvania before earning his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2000). Specializing in American Studies, with active research focusing on nineteenth-century American literature and culture, he has recently published articles and essays in American Literary History, American Quarterly, New England Quarterly, Early American Literature, American Literature, and Religion and American Culture.
Professor Ryan frequently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American Romanticism. American Realism and Naturalism, Early American Literature, and the American Novel, as well as World Literature I and composition for the core curriculum.
His research and teaching interests include popular culture, American religions, the history of the book, Transcendentalism, Melville studies, literary representations of technology, and disability studies.