Suzanne Ashworth

Suzanne Ashworth

Phone
614-823-1162

Email
sashworth@otterbein.edu

Office
Towers Hall 234

Professor
Department of English

Suzanne Ashworth is a professor in the Department of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. She has taught early American literature, women’s literature, GLBTQ literatures, gender & sexuality studies, film studies, and the emotional, political, and interpersonal implications of social media.

Her research interests include the history of reading, pop culture and media studies. Her published work examines the interplay among literature; histories of the body, desire, sexuality, and gender; and critical theory. Her latest project is a book-length study of Poe’s short fiction.

Education

  • B.A., Miami University, 1992
  • M.A., Pennsylvania State University, 1994
  • Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 2000

Research, Creative, & Professional Work

Research and Teaching Interests
  • Early American Literatures
  • GLBTQ Literatures
  • Gender & Sexuality Studies
  • Film Studies
"I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night." ~ Walt Whitman Scholarship:My research has centered on Thoreau, Whitman, 19th-century women writers, invalidism, cultural conceptions of the body, gender, and sexuality, early American spiritualism, posthumanism, and queer theory. My published work has appeared in edited collections, Legacy, American Transcendental Quarterly, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, and ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance. Recent or new topical courses:“Superhumans,” “Freak Cultures,” “Queer and Post-Queer Theory,” “Screening Teens,” and “Media Q: Screening Sexuality.” Senior project interests:I love to work on anything related to gender, sexuality, the body, identity, and desire; early American authors, texts, and culture; glbtq literature, theory, and culture; film and media studies. I’m also fascinated by freakery, specters, and monstrosity; projects that explore an author’s biography and letters; and projects that interweave textual analysis and the personal essay (i.e. autobiographical criticism).