{"id":284,"date":"2017-10-13T20:40:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T20:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-english\/facultystaff\/amyelkins\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T14:16:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:16:41","slug":"amyelkins","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/english-and-creative-writing\/facultystaff\/amyelkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy E. Elkins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amy E. Elkins (Ph.D., Emory University; M.A., University of Virginia; B.A., Hendrix College) teaches courses on twentieth and twenty-first century literature and interdisciplinary studies. Professor Elkins has special interests in art theory and visual culture, intersectional feminist approaches to the archive and cultural history, and experimental\/multimedia\/collaborative academic writing. She\u2019s also the editor of the queer and feminist theory forum, \u201c<\/span>Orientations<\/b><\/a>,\u201d  for <\/span>Modernism\/Modernity Print Plus<\/span><\/i> and is serving a second term as the Modern Language Association\u2019s elected delegate for Women and Gender in the Profession. As an artist, theorist, and scholar, Prof. Elkins emphasizes a dynamic, global approach to research and student-driven inquiry across media. She received Macalester\u2019s Educator of the Year award for 2020-2021, and is a current Digital Liberal Arts Faculty Fellow. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is the author of<\/span> <\/span>Crafting Feminism<\/i><\/b> <\/b>from Literary Modernism to the Multimedia Present<\/i><\/b><\/a> (<\/span>Oxford Uni<\/span>versity Press, 2022; paperback edition, 2025) and continues to write on modernism (and metamodernist afterlives), archives, and craft with forthcoming chapters in the <\/span>Oxford Handbook of Queer Modernisms<\/span><\/i> (Oxford University Press) and the <\/span>Text & Techne: Textile Poetics and Poetic Textiles <\/span><\/i>(Bloomsbury Academic). Prof. Elkins is at work on two new projects: one that considers theories of fluidity, flux, and flow in the cultural history of bathing rituals, geothermal springs, and other immersive experiences\u2014and archives\u2014of wellbeing. And a second major academic monograph that <\/span>uses the space of the institutional archive as an experimental laboratory for new approaches to creative-critical research in the humanities. Using the intersection of literary studies and art\/craft history, this project demonstrates the value of research-creation, counter-archives, collaboration, and creative-critical fabulation (a form of scholarly storytelling) to more inclusive models of higher education and humanities research. <\/span>Her essays have appeared in journals such as <\/span>PMLA<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Contemporary Literature<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Interdisciplinary Literary Studies<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>Tulsa Studies in Women\u2019s Literature. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Elkins is also a public humanities scholar who interviews writers on visual culture for the <\/span>Los Angeles Review of Books<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/a> In addition to collaborative and multimedia writing in venues such as <\/span>Modernism\/Modernity Print +<\/i><\/b><\/a>, <\/span>Post45 Contemporaries<\/i><\/b><\/a>, and<\/span> <\/span>Inscription Journal<\/i><\/b><\/a>, she is passionate about conversations that cross the art-scholarship divide. She has been in conversation with Ocean Vuong for the <\/span>Novel Dialogue<\/b><\/a> podcast and Lorna Goodison at <\/span>Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center<\/b><\/a>. Her current arts practice explores narrative quilt-making, poetry broadsides, medium format photography, and embodied filmmaking. She is writing her first novel. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Areas of Study<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modernism
20th\/21st-century British literature
Irish studies
Diasporic literatures
Art theory
archives &amp
visual culture
Eco-studies
Queer theory and gender studies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fall 2025 Courses<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ENGL 137-01 Dark Academia
<\/span>ENGL 210-01 Film Studies: Poetry in Motion
<\/span>ENGL 294-02 Queer Classics<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spring 2026 Courses<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ENGL 240-01: Irish Literature<\/span>
<\/span>ENGL 262-01: Cottagecore<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selected Publications<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSequences of Touch: Wool Roving, Dried Flowers, Linen Rags, Rotten Potatoes,\u201d co-authored with Sheryda Warrener, Claire Battershill, and Jayme Collins. <\/span>Inscription: The Journal of Material Text\u2014Theory, Practice, History<\/span><\/i>, October 2023. <\/span>online<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAli Smith\u2019s Leavings: Postcards, Letters, and the Unbound Book,\u201d with Deidre Shauna Lynch. <\/span>Post45 Contemporaries<\/span><\/i>, May 2022. <\/span>online<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Weaver\u2019s Handshake,\u201d a film-essay. Special issue of <\/span>MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture <\/span><\/i>on \u201cCraft,\u201d December 2021. <\/span>online<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019Draw deep from your palette\u2019: Lorna Goodison\u2019s Poetics of Pigment,\u201d <\/span>Contemporary Literature <\/span><\/i>61.1 (Spring 2020): 89-117.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTypestruck: On Women and Writing Machines,\u201d co-written with Glenn Adamson,<\/span>
<\/span>Modernism\/Modernity <\/span><\/i>Print+ <\/span>Visualities<\/span><\/i> series, edited by Alix Beeston, July 2020. <\/span>online<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUncovering Jean McConville: Seamus Heaney\u2019s Poetic Cartography of the Disappeared,\u201d with Roan O\u2019Neill (collaborative research project with Macalester advisee, funding from Mellon Foundation Lifelong Learners), <\/span>Interdisciplinary Literary Studies<\/span><\/i> 22.3 (2020): 218-39.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom the Gutter to the Gallery: Berenice Abbott Photographs Mina Loy\u2019s Assemblages,\u201d <\/span>PMLA<\/span><\/i> <\/span>Little Known Documents<\/span><\/i> 134.5 (2019): 1094-1103.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Website: <\/span>http:\/\/amyelkins.net<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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