Julie O'ConnorO'Connor portrait

Areas of Interest

  • Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
  • Anti-racist and Feminist pedagogy
  • Indigenous studies of Canada and the United States
  • American and Canadian regionalism
  • Feminist and Spatial Theory

Biography

Julie Wendy O’Connor is a PhD candidate from Buffalo, NY. Her research interests include contemporary poetry and poetics, anti-racist and feminist pedagogy, indigenous studies of Canada and the United States, American and Canadian regionalism, and feminist and spatial theory. She is currently writing her dissertation on the transnational sense of community created by women through poetry, both literary and aural, in the Greater Niagara Region of Western New York and Southern Ontario. Julie’s dissertation committee includes English department faculty members Ellen McCallum and Edward Watts, and Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures faculty members Malea Powell and Ann Larabee. McCallum directed a ‘Contemporary Poetics’ exam, Powell an ‘Indigenous Studies of Canada and the United States’ exam, and Watts a ‘Regionalism Theory and Contemporary American and Canadian Literature’ exam. Julie has presented research on American and Canadian women writers and regionalist reading pedagogy at conferences throughout the United States and Canada. She has taught courses in integrative arts and humanities, composition, and women’s studies at Michigan State University, SUNY at Buffalo State College, and Niagara University.