Published February 06, 2014
Dr. Jana Giles, assistant professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Monroe,
recently traveled to two national conferences to present her original research on
modernism and teaching methods.
Giles presented a pedagogical paper titled “Integrating Ecocriticism into a New Graduate
English Course in a Southern Public Regional University,” at the 129th Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in Chicago, Ill.
The MLA is the primary professional association in the United States for the study
of language and literature.
The paper was based on a course Giles taught at ULM and recounted the texts, topics,
and methodologies that Giles implemented in teaching a course on literature and the
environment. This was Giles’s third presentation accepted for the MLA Convention.
Giles also attended the Rocky Mountain Language Association Convention in Vancouver,
Wash. There, she presented a paper on Australian literature and aesthetics titled
“The Postcolonial Sublime in Joan Lindsay’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock.’”
Giles has presented annually at this convention since 2010, in addition to chairing
panels on English literature Since 1900, and on Literary Criticism.
Travel to these presentations was made possible by funds from the ULM McKneely Endowed
Professorship in English Literature, which Giles has held since 2013.
Giles earned her B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John's College, her M.A. in English
(Concentration in Creative Writing) from the University of New Mexico, and her Ph.D.
in English Literature from the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
She has been an assistant professor of English at ULM since 2009.
