Virginia Garnett received her doctorate from the University of Delaware where she specialized in 19th- and 20th-century American literature. Her current project, The Podium in Print: The Popular Lecture in American Literary Culture, 1865–1914, examines the intersection of orality and print and argues for the centrality of platform culture to the postbellum literary marketplace. Her work has appeared in Irish Studies Review, and her essay “With Press and Paddle: William H. H. Murray’s ‘Adirondack’ Lectures and the Making of a Wilderness Guide” has recently appeared in The Cosmopolitan Lyceum: Lecture Culture and the Globe in Nineteenth-Century America, edited by Tom F. Wright and published by the University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. In her time at Delaware, she has taught thematic composition courses for the Honors program, surveys of American literature, an advanced single-author study of Edith Wharton, writing intensive, literature-based courses for non-majors, as well as numerous sections of freshman composition. In all of these courses, she encourages critical thinking through class discussion, group work, and problem-based learning that results in projects as varied as commonplace books, podcasts, and collaborative essays.
DEGREES
Ph.D., English, University of Delaware, 2014
M.A., English, University of Delaware, 2008
B.A., English, with a minor in Business, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2006
Virginia Garnett 