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MICHAEL C. COHEN
University of California, Los Angeles
Department of English
149 Humanities
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1530
1531 Maltman Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(201) 320 2382
cohenm@humnet.ucla.edu
EDUCATION
PhD 2007, New York University, Dept. of English
Dissertation: Cultures of Poetry in Late Nineteenth-Century America
Director: Virginia W. Jackson
Committee: Patricia Crain, Kevis Goodman, Meredith L. McGill, Mary Poovey
BA 2000, Dartmouth College, English and American literature, cum laude
EMPLOYMENT
2011-present
2009-2011
2007-2009
Assistant Prof. of English, University of California, Los Angeles
Assistant Prof. of English, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Visiting Assistant Prof. of English, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN
PUBLICATIONS
BOOK (IN PRINT)
The Social Lives of Poems in Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
BOOK (IN PROGRESS)
Poetry and the History of Reading
This book is a speculative investigation into the relationships between reading as a set of material
practices, literary traditions and the history of literariness, and contemporary critical theory and
methods, focusing on the United States before 1900. The project assembles a vast archive of
readers and their readings, and it reimagines American literature from the perspective of readers
rather than authors. Readers’ canons allow for a more fluid approach to early national literature,
and they demand a much closer attention to the roles of poems in the earlier Atlantic world.
SCHOLARLY EDITION (UNDER CONTRACT)
Co-editor, with Alexandra Socarides, The Poetry of Charles Brockden Brown. Vol. 7 of The
Collected Writings of Charles Brockden Brown. Gen. eds. Philip Barnard and Mark Kamrath.
Bucknell: Bucknell University Press. Forthcoming 2017.
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PUBLICATIONS (cont.)
JOURNAL ARTICLES, ESSAYS, AND BOOK CHAPTERS (IN PRINT)
“Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell and the New England Tradition.” The Cambridge History of
American Poetry. Ed. Alfred Bendixen and Stephen Burt. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014: 259-81.
“Reading the Nineteenth Century.” American Literary History 26.2 (2014): 406-17.
“Alienating Language: A Poet’s Masque.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 23.1 (2014): 75-97.
“James Whitcomb Riley” (headnote and selections). The Heath Anthology of American
Literature, Vol. C, 7th ed. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. Boston: Wadsworth, 2014: 458-67.
“Peddling Authorship in the Age of Jackson.” ELH 79.2 (2012): 369-88.
“U.S. Poetry: Beginnings to 1900.” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed. Ed.
Stephen Cushman and Roland Greene. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012: 1480-85.
“Dialect Poetry.” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed. Ed. Stephen
Cushman and Roland Greene. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012: 354-57.
“Popular Ballads: Rhythmic Remediations in the Nineteenth Century.” Meter Matters: Verse
Cultures of the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. Jason Hall. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011:
267-94.
“Contraband Singing: Poems and Songs in Circulation during the Civil War.” American
Literature 82.2 (2010): 271-304. WINNER OF THE 2010 INTERDISCIPLINARY NINETEENTHCENTURY STUDIES ESSAY PRIZE
“Peddlers, Poems, and Local Culture: The Case of Jonathan Plummer, a ‘Balladmonger’ in
Nineteenth-Century New England.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 54.1-4 (2008):
9-32.
“Whittier, Ballad Reading, and the Culture of Nineteenth-Century Poetry.” Arizona Quarterly
64.3 (2008): 1-29.
“Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Genres of Dialect.” African American Review 41.2 (2007): 24757.
“E.C. Stedman and the Invention of Victorian Poetry.” Victorian Poetry 43.2 (2005): 165-89.
REPRINTED IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY POETRY: CRITICISM AND DEBATES, ED. JONATHAN
HERAPATH AND EMMA MASON (LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, 2015) (FORTHCOMING)
“Poetry in Motion in Early America.” Circles and Circulation in the Revolutionary Atlantic.
Exhibition catalogue, Fales Library, New York University, 2004: 7-17.
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PUBLICATIONS (cont.)
BOOK REVIEWS (IN PRINT)
Review of David Atkinson and Steve Roud, eds., Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain,
Ireland, and North America: The Interface between Print and Oral Traditions. SHARP News 24.3
(2015): 8-9.
Review of Christopher Hanlon, America’s England: Antebellum Literature and Atlantic
Sectionalism. Nineteenth-Century Literature 68.3 (2014): 426-30.
Review of Frances Dickey, The Modern Portrait Poem: From Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Ezra
Pound. Victorians Institute Journal 41 (2013): 243-6.
JOURNAL ARTICLES, ESSAYS, BOOK CHAPTERS, and REVIEWS (FORTHCOMING)
“Album Verse and the Poetics of Scribal Circulation.” Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century
American Women’s Poetry. Ed. Jennifer Putzi and Alexandra Socarides. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Forthcoming 2016.
“The Poetry of Charles Brockden Brown: An Introduction and Overview.” The Oxford Handbook
to Charles Brockden Brown. Ed. Philip Barnard and Stephen Shapiro. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Forthcoming 2016.
“Poetry.” U.S. Popular Print Culture to 1860. Ed. Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray.
Vol. 5 of The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture. Gen. Ed. Gary Kelly. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Forthcoming 2018.
PLENARY LECTURES AND INVITED TALKS
“Silas Wegg’s Legs.” Dickens Universe, University of California, Santa Cruz, August 2014
“The Poetics of Reform: Antislavery Poetry during the Antebellum Era.” English Department
Spring Athenaeum, University of California, Los Angeles, May 2013
“Reading: An Accidental History.” Southland Graduate Conference, University of California, Los
Angeles, June 2012
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Why We Can’t Read Nineteenth-Century Poetry.” Seminar co-organizer with Virginia Jackson.
To be held at C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists biannual conference, Penn
State, March 2016
“Scott’s Children: Romantic Poetry and Mass Education at the Turn of the Century.” To be
presented at the Modern Language Association annual convention, Austin, January 2016
“Networks and Exchanges.” Panel synthesizer. “The Long, Wide Nineteenth Century”
conference, University of California, Santa Cruz, August 2015
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CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (cont.)
“The Really Long Eighteenth Century.” Society of Early Americanists biannual conference,
Chicago, June 2015
“Histories of Reading in Early America.” Panel organizer. Society of Early Americanists biannual
conference, Chicago, June 2015
“The Lyric Theory Reader: A Discussion.” Roundtable participant, “The Social Life of Poetic
Language: A boundary 2 Event” conference, University of California, Los Angeles, April 2014
“The Seasons of American Poetry.” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-century Americanists
biannual conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, March 2014
“Did Nineteenth-Century Poetry Have Something in Common?” Panel organizer. C19: The
Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists biannual conference, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, March 2014
“Rethinking Postbellum Literary History.” Roundtable participant, Modern Language Association
annual convention, Chicago, January 2014
“Historical Poetics in the Nineteenth Century.” Roundtable participant, North American Victorian
Studies Association annual meeting, Pasadena, October 2013
“Bad Seeds.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment annual conference,
University of Kansas, May 2013
“Reading American Poetry According to The Seasons.” Society of Early Americanists biannual
conference, Savannah, February 2013
“Periodizing Early American Poetry.” Panel organizer. Society of Early Americanists biannual
conference, Savannah, February 2013
“Periodizing English and American Nineteenth-Century Poetry Inside and Outside National
Frames.” Roundtable participant, the Modern Language Association annual convention, Boston,
January 2013
“Atlantic Passages: Chains, Cables, and Poems.” North American Victorian Studies Association
annual meeting, University of Wisconsin, Madison, September 2012
“Transatlantic Currents: Poetic Networks in the Nineteenth Century.” Panel organizer. North
American Victorian Studies Association annual meeting, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
September 2012
“Poems without Poetry.” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists biannual
conference, University of California, Berkeley, April 2012
“The Aesthetics of Dialect: Regionalism, Balladry, and the Book Trade.” Modern Language
Association annual convention, Seattle, January 2012
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CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (cont.)
“Front Lines: Annie Laurie in the Light Brigade.” North American Victorian Studies Association
annual meeting, Vanderbilt University, November 2011
“Jubilee Singing: Circulating Race and Poetry After the Civil War.” American Literature
Association annual convention, Boston, May 2011
“Remediated Rhythms.” American Comparative Literature Association annual meeting,
Vancouver, April 2011
“Whittier in Philadelphia: Poetry, Reform, and a Society of Friends.” “Quakers and Slavery,
1657-1865” conference, Philadelphia, November 2010
“Something New, or, the Tales and Travels of that Truly Eccentric Character, Lord Timothy
Dexter.” “Weird America: Circum-Atlantic Cultures, 1790-1830” conference, Huntington
Library, October 2010
“Reading Whittier, Writing Whittier.” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
biannual conference, Penn State University, May 2010
“How to Read a Nineteenth-Century Poem.” Panel co-organizer with Virginia Jackson. C19: The
Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists biannual conference, Penn State, May 2010
“The Aural Archive.” Seminar co-organizer with Sarah J. Townsend. American Comparative
Literature Association annual meeting, New Orleans, April 2010
“The African Ballad in the Atlantic Triangle.” “Crossing the Bar: Transatlantic Poetics in the
Nineteenth Century” conference, University of Pennsylvania, March 2010
“Walt Whitman and the Death of Lincoln.” Modern Language Association annual convention,
Philadelphia, December 2009
“Peddling Gossip.” American Literature Association annual convention, Boston, May 2009
“Civil War Songs: Poems and Airs in Circulation.” American Comparative Literature Association
annual meeting, Harvard University, March 2009
“Reading Ballads in Early America.” “Discovering the Social in the History of Reading”
conference, University of California, Santa Barbara, March 2009
“Popular Ballads, Oral Cultures, and Nineteenth-century Nationalism.” “Metre Matters: New
Approaches to Prosody, 1780-1914” conference, University of Exeter, July 2008
“The Popular Ballad, a Figure of Orality.” “The Oral, the Written, and Other Verbal Media”
conference, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, June 2008
“Genteel Walt Whitman, or, ‘American Poetry’ in 1876.” American Literature Association annual
convention, San Francisco, May 2008
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CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (cont.)
“The Medium and the Message: ‘American Poetry’ in 1876.” American Comparative Literature
Association annual meeting, Puebla, Mexico, April 2007
“Ballad People: Music in the Making of African American and Celtic Identities.” “Transatlantic
Exchange: African Americans and the Celtic Nations” conference, University of Wales, Swansea,
March 2007
“The Popular Ballad in Nineteenth-Century America.” Modern Language Association annual
convention, Philadelphia, December 2006
“Dunbar and the Genres of Dialect.” Paul Laurence Dunbar Centennial Conference, Stanford
University, March 2006
“The Anglo-American Popular Ballad.” North American Victorian Studies Association annual
meeting, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, October 2005
“Whittier’s Songs of Freedom.” Northeast Modern Language Association annual convention,
Pittsburgh, March 2004
“Thomas Carlyle and the Problems of Historiography.” Victorian Studies Association of Western
Canada annual meeting, University of Alberta, Edmonton, September 2003
TEACHING
FIELDS OF SPECIALIZATION
American literature to 1900; nineteenth-century poetry; Victorian literature; transatlantic culture;
historical poetics; history of the book
COURSES TAUGHT
University of California, Los Angeles:
ENGL-257: Graduate Seminar: The History of Reading
ENGL-184: Capstone Seminar in English: Literary Transcendentalism
ENGL-181A: Senior Seminar: Whitman and Dickinson
ENGL-167A: American Poetry to 1900
ENGL-166B: American Literature, 1776 to 1832
ENGL-133: Transatlantic Literatures: Atlantic Slavery, Atlantic Freedom
ENGL-132: Intro to Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Literature and Theory
ENGL-10B: Literatures in English, 1700 to 1850
Louisiana State University:
ENGL-7974: Graduate Seminar: American Poetry and Public Culture
ENGL-4104: Undergraduate Capstone Seminar: Whitman and Dickinson
ENGL-4070: Studies in American Literature to 1865: Atlantic Romanticism
ENGL-3070: American Literature I: Forging a Nation
ENGL-2673: Literature and Ethnicity
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TEACHING (cont.)
COURSES TAUGHT (cont.)
Macalester College:
ENGL-403: Senior Seminar in American Authors: Whitman and Dickinson
ENGL-374: The American Novel: Realism, Naturalism, Modernism
ENGL-371: Nineteenth-century American Literature: Transcendentalism
ENGL-371: Nineteenth-century American Literature: 19th c. Poetry
ENGL-130: American Voices: Multi-ethnic Literature and American History
ENGL-136: Introduction to Drama
UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
UCLA, Department of English:
Executive Committee, 2015-2016
Graduate Committee, 2013-2016
Undergraduate Committee, 2012-2013
English Library Committee, 2011-2016
Mellon-funded working group on curricular revision, 2012-2014, 2015-2016
Dissertation committees: Kevin Moore, Christian Reed, Daniel Couch, Jacob Lang
Doctoral exam committees: Christian Reed, Daniel Couch, Benjamin Beck, Grant
Rosson, Samantha Sommers, Jacob Lang, Mark Gallagher
Masters thesis committees: Kimber Thomas (AAS)
Graduate Summer Research Mentorship: Benjamin Beck (2013)
Thompson Prize essay reader, Undergraduate Honors Program, 2013
Americanist Research Colloquium (ARC), co-organizer, 2013-2016
UCLA, Academic Senate:
Research grants program, proposal review reader, 2013-2015
UCLA, Graduate Division:
Fulbright Program Campus Review Committee, 2015-2016
Graduate Research Mentorship (GRM) program, proposal review reader, 2013-2015
UCLA, Undergraduate Research Center
Faculty advisor, Undergraduate Research Fellows Program: Mario Giron (2015)
UCLA, Undergraduate Education Initiatives:
Faculty mentor, Undergraduate Student Initiated Education: Samantha Allan (2015)
J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
Editorial advisory board member, 2015-2018
The Dickens Universe, University of California, Santa Cruz
Faculty participant, 2012-2015
Routledge Press:
Book proposal reviewer, 2014
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UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE (cont.)
Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS):
Essay Prize committee, 2012
Louisiana State University, Department of English:
Job Placement Officer, 2010-2011
Undergraduate Studies Committee, 2009-2010
MFA thesis committee: My Ngyuen
Doctoral exam committee: Thomas Sowders
Louisiana State University, College of Humanities and Social Science:
Research Development Group, Arts and Humanities Division, 2010-2011
Louisiana State University, University College
Faculty mentor, Ronald E. McNair Research Scholars program: Laura Culpepper (2011)
HONORS AND AWARDS
Hellman Fellows Award, University of California, Los Angeles, 2014-2015
Faculty Career Development Award, University of California, Los Angeles, 2013-2014
Research Enabling Grant, University of California, Los Angeles, 2013-2015
Gest Fellowship, Haverford College Special Collections Library, 2013
Faculty Research Grant, University of California, Los Angeles, 2012-2013
Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Essay Prize, 2010
Council on Research Summer Stipend, ORED, Louisiana State University, 2010
Junior Faculty Travel Grant, ORED, Louisiana State University, 2009-2011
Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, GSAS, New York University, 2006-2007
Joyce Tracy Fellow, American Antiquarian Society 2005-2006
Patricia Dunn Lehrman Fellowship, GSAS, New York University, 2005-2006
Penfield Prize, Dept. of English, New York University, 2005-2006
Rosenthal Prize, Dept. of English, New York University, 2005-2006
Rosenthal Prize, Dept. of English, New York University, 2004-2005
Brine Summer Fellowship, Dept. of English, New York University, 2004
Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship, New York University, 2001-2006
James B. Reynolds 1890 Scholarship, Dartmouth College, 2000
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS
American Comparative Literature Association; C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century
Americanists; Modern Language Association; North American Victorian Studies Association;
Society of Early Americanists
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REFERENCES (LETTERS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST)
Virginia W. Jackson, University of California, Irvine
Meredith L. McGill, Rutgers University
Elsie Michie, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Mary Poovey, New York University
Daylanne English, Macalester College
Patricia Crain, New York University