Title: Lecturer

Department: English

Office: 302 Benson Hall
Phone: 322-2268
Email: lauren.n.hoffer@vanderbilt.edu

Degrees

• Ph.D. English, Vanderbilt University, August 2009
• M.A. English, Vanderbilt University, 2005
• B.A. English with Minors in Classics and Creative Writing, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, University of Alabama, 2004

Research Area

• Victorian Literature and Culture
• The Novel and Narrative Theory
• Gender and Literary History
• Fantasy and Science Fiction
• Contemporary Fiction
• Adaptation and Intertextuality

Current Research

• Book Project: "Sympathy for Sale: The Paid Female Companion in Victorian Literature and Culture"

Current Courses

• ENGL 117W (Sections 1 & 2)—Introduction to Literary Criticism, “Once Upon a Theory: Fairy Tales and How to Read Them”
• ENGL 104W—Prose Fiction, “‘There are other worlds than these’: The Fantasy Tradition, Representative Texts”

Current Positions

• Lecturer, Department of English

Previous Positions

• Teaching Fellow, Department of English, 2005-2009
• Co-Facilitator, TA Training Colloquium, 2009
• Co-Organizer, Dickens Project Conference, 2009
• Member, Academic Affairs Committee, 2008-2009
• Member, Committee on Course Development, 2008
• Co-Chair, Nineteenth Century Seminar, 2005-2007
• Member, Graduate Student Council, 2004-2005
• Research Assistant for Professors Jay Clayton,
• Mark Schoenfield, and Jonathan Lamb

Professional Societies

• Modern Language Association
• Society for the Study of Narrative
• Victorians Institute
• 18th-and- 19th Century British Women Writers Association

Professional Honors

• Thomas Daniel Young Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching, Vanderbilt, 2007-2008
• Center for Ethics Dissertation Fellow, Vanderbilt, 2008
• Vanderbilt University Graduate Fellowship, 2005-2009

Publications

• “‘She brings everything to a grindstone’: Sympathy and the Paid Female Companion’s Critical Work in David Copperfield.” Dickens Studies Annual (forthcoming, 2010)
• “Wilkie Collins’s Companion Novels: Poor Miss Finch and The New Magdalen.” (under review)

Miscellaneous

Dissertation: "'That Inevitable Woman': The Paid Female Companion and Sympathy in the Victorian Novel"