Assistant Professor, English
Contact Information
Email: abryan24@gmu.edu
Phone: 703.993.1110
Mailstop: English Department, MSN 3E4
Campus: Fairfax
Office: Horizon Hall 4202
Biography
Amanda Bryan received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and teaches composition and literature at 91°”Íű. Her research focuses on postcolonial studies, Anglophone Caribbean studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She has been published in the Journal of West Indian Literature and Caribbean Quarterly.
Current Research
My current research interests include how postcolonial cultural studies (including, but not limited to, sexuality studies, women and gender studies, and class theory) intersects with indigenous research methods and how the teaching of both can enhance ideas of belonging and community.
Selected Publications
âEmbodied Errantry: Aldrickâs Relational Masculinity in The Dragon Canât Dance.â Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, forthcoming.
âTracing Errantry: Tan-Tanâs Path to Personal Survival in Midnight Robber.â Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 4, November 2021, pp. 411-426.
ââThe thing relayed as well as the thing relatedâ: Constructing Female Strength through Errantry in Nalo Hopkinsonâs âRobber Queenâ Folktales.â Journal of West Indian Literature, vol. 29, no. 2, April 2021, pp. 90-107.
âDecolonization and Mysticism in William Butler Yeatsâs The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose.â Irish Studies Review, vol. 23, February 2015, pp. 68-89.
âAliceâs Struggle with Imperialism: Undermining the British Empire through Aliceâs Adventures in Wonderland.â The Final Chapters: Concluding Papers of The Journal of Childrenâs Literature Studies, vol.9, issue 3, Wizardâs Tower Press, London, October 2013, pp. 22-32.
Courses Taught
CompositionâENGH 101
My course highlights the connections between rhetoric, public writing, and inquiry-based research. Students practice writing as a learnable skill through developing narrative arguments, research arguments, and a genre/audience revision project. The course further identifies writing as a process through scaffolded writing activities and reflective writing.
Texts and Contexts: Caribbean Women Writers â ENGH 202
This âtexts and contextsâ course centers the work that women writers perform (in both the sense of âaccomplishâ and âactingâ) in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. We discuss topics that highlight the positions, benefits, and difficulties for women in the Caribbean, largely informed by Black feminist theory and postcolonial feminism. More broadly, we develop appreciations for and understandings of literature, literary elements, and literary criticisms. Specifically, how cultural components appear and inform one another across texts.
Advanced Composition - ENGH 302
My course works through the intensive process of a semester-long research project, specific to students' discipline expectations. Students practice building multiple research logs (including exigence, keywords, research questions, new offerings, and syntheses) with the goal of composing genre-specific literature reviews and audience-specific advocacy letters.
Dimensions of Writing and Literature - ENGH 305
My course teaches students the conventions of writing in literary studies while emphasizing writing processes. Students develop interpretive skills for further study in the English major through the teaching of in-depth close reading, intertextual analysis, and critical reading in scholarship, culminating in an extensive research portfolio.
Reading the Arts: Postcolonial Creative Cultures - HNRS 122
My honors seminar focuses on instilling inquiry and collaboration as bedrocks of higher learning through analyzing the questions raised by colonial and postcolonial creative works (prose, poetry, drama, visual art and vocal art). Most inquiries are informed by texts created both during colonization in response to imperialism and those composed âpost-colonization,â which analyze the effects of colonial power. The courseâs apex is a collaborative artistic project and presentation of a postcolonial concept.
Education
PhD, English, University of North CarolinaâGreensboro, 2019
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate: Womenâs, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2019
MA, English, North Carolina State University, 2013
BA, English and Sociology, University of Sioux Falls, 2010, summa cum laude
Recent Presentation
âGeneric Errantry: Writing to Right Patriarchal Control of Female Sexuality in Literature.â&ČÔČúČő±è;Caribbean Studies Forum Conference, University of Belize, Belmopan, October 2019.
âMasculine Identity: Moving Through Calvary Hill in The Dragon Canât Dance.â&ČÔČúČő±è;37th Annual West Indian Literature Conference, University of Miami, October 2018.
âClassed Identity: Tracking Stasis in A House for Mr. Biswas.â&ČÔČúČő±è;Caribbean Studies Conference, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, April 2018.
ââThe thing related as well as the thing relayedâ: Female Strength and Knowledge in âTan-Tan the Robber Queenâ Folktales.â&ČÔČúČő±è;Caribbean Studies Forum Conference, University of Belize and East Carolina University, Belmopan, March 2018.