John A Casey Jr. PhD
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of English
University of Illinois at Chicago
601 South Morgan Street (MC 162)
Room 2027 University Hall
Chicago, IL 60607-7120
312-413-2237 (office)
312-208-9536 (cell)
312-413-1005 (fax)
jcasey3@uic.edu
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. American Literature. University of Illinois at Chicago. 2010.
MA. Literature. University of Illinois at Chicago. 2002.
BA. English and Latin. University of Vermont. 2000.
PUBLICATIONS:
New Men: Creating the Concept of the Veteran in Late Nineteenth-Century American Literature
and Culture. Fordham University Press. [Book manuscript currently under review for Fordham
University Press Reconstructing America Series.]
“Marked By War—Demobilization, Disability, and the Trope of the Citizen-Soldier in Miss
Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty.” Civil War History. [Forthcoming June 2014.]
“Veterans.” Civil War America: A Social and Cultural History With Primary Sources. Ed. Zoe
Trodd and Maggi Morehouse. New York: Routledge Press, 2012. 284-292. Print.
“Searching for a War of One’s Own—Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, and the
Glorious Burden of the Civil War Veteran.” American Literary Realism. 44.1 (Fall 2011): 1-22.
Print.
“Art and Warfare.” Weapons and Warfare. Volume 3. Ed. John Powell. Pasadena, CA: Salem
Press, 2010. 851-855. Print.
“Commemoration of War.” Weapons and Warfare. Volume 3. Ed. John Powell. Pasadena, CA:
Salem Press, 2010. 856-860. Print.
“Carpetbaggers.” Encyclopedia of African American History. Ed. Walter C. Rucker and Leslie
Alexander. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. 335. Print.
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AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS:
Faculty Summer Institute Mini Grant. Academic Computing and Communications
Center. University of Illinois at Chicago. 2012.
($500.00 to apply technological methods and tools to classroom instruction.)
Upton Foundation Fellowship on Civil War America. William L. Clements Library.
University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI. 2011.
(Two month residential fellowship--$8,000.)
Filson Fellowship. Filson Historical Society. Louisville, Kentucky. 2011.
(One week residential fellowship--$500.00.)
Graduate Merit Award. Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Association. University of
Illinois at Chicago. 2008. ($500.00.)
DISSERTATION PROJECT:
My dissertation, The Vanishing Civil War Veteran in Late Nineteenth-Century American
Literature and Culture, explores a rift between veterans and the civilian populace that has largely
been overlooked by scholars of the post-Civil War period. In my study, I shift focus away from
the more visible late nineteenth-century concerns over race and sectional reconciliation and place
it upon the problem of veteran reintegration in the wake of the war. My research on veteran
reintegration serves as the foundation for a larger discussion of what it meant conceptually to be a
veteran in the late nineteenth-century United States and how that understanding gradually
evolved. I argue that such classics of Civil War literature as Ambrose Bierce’s Tales of Soldiers
and Civilians and Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage register a change in how veterans
were understood. Although the marker of “veteran” was initially believed to be temporary, my
research reveals that miscommunication and misunderstanding between former soldiers and
civilians during the postwar reintegration process led this social status to become a permanent
identity. This in turn led to a new way of writing about war, one that saw it as a transcendent
experience. Not only did this new way of conceptualizing veterans and writing about war add
another dimension to the problem of reconciliation in post-Civil War America, it also set a
precedent for future American writers such as Ernest Hemingway who would hereafter write
about war in novels like A Farewell to Arms in terms analogous to those of religious conversion.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies
August 2012Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago
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Lecturer
August 2012Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago
Visiting Lecturer
August 2010-May 2012
Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago
Adjunct Faculty
August 2008-December 2011
Department of English and First Year Seminar, Columbia College Chicago
Visiting Lecturer.
August 2008-December 2008
Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago
Instructor and Teaching Assistant
August 2000-May 2008
Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago
Research Assistant
May 2001-May 2002
Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago
COURSES TAUGHT:
University of Illinois at Chicago
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Sophomore survey of American Literature from the Colonial Period to 1914.
Sophomore level introduction to Literary Criticism and Critical Theory.
Introduction to Literature (with a focus on literary genres).
Introduction to British and American Prose Fiction (with a focus on the genre of
Detective fiction).
Introduction to American Literature and Culture (with a focus on the literary genre of the
Western and the concept of the American Frontier).
Freshman Composition I and II. In the first half of the course, students examine the
concept of genre, writing in a wide variety of forms, including the traditional college
essay. The second half of the course uses Chicago history and urban planning and design
as topics to help aid students in learning research skills (primary and secondary research)
with the ultimate goal being a college level research paper.
Columbia College Chicago
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Writing and Rhetoric I. (Introduction to the college essay through the examination of
exemplary models.)
Writing and Rhetoric II. (Introduction to college level research and writing with an
emphasis on ethnographic research methods. Students conduct field research on a topic
related to either Chicago history or urban planning and design.)
First Year Seminar. (An inter-disciplinary Great Ideas course that asks students to
engage such issues as ethics and community using a wide variety of creative media
including film, dance, sculpture, music, writing, and photography.)
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Ph.D. EXAM FIELDS:
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Nineteenth-Century American Literature, 1820-1905.
British Romanticism, 1796-1825.
Literature of the American South, 1920-1970.
Historical Approaches to Literature: Theory and Practice.
CONFERENCES:
Papers Presented:
“Narrating Trauma in the Writings of Sam Watkins and Ambrose Bierce.” New England Modern
Language Association (NEMLA). Boston, MA. March 21-24, 2013.
“Relics of War—The Image of the Wounded Veteran in Post-Civil War America.” The Legacy of
the Civil War: An Interdisciplinary Conference. Chesnutt Hill College. Philadelphia, PA.
November 10-12, 2011.
“The Return of the Natural Gentleman in John Esten Cooke’s Heir of Gaymount.” Virginia
Forum. Lexington, VA. March 25-26, 2011.
“The Post-Traumatic Flashback as a Mode of Narration in Ambrose Bierce’s ‘A Resumed
Identity.” Popular Culture and American Culture Association National Conference. St. Louis,
MO. April 2010.
“Combating Illness in Miss Ravenel’s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty.” Popular Culture
and American Culture Association National Conference. New Orleans, LA. April 2009.
“The Violent Core of Masculinity: Militarism and Manhood in Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge
of Courage and ‘The Veteran.’” Popular Culture and American Culture Association National
Conference. San Francisco, CA. March 2008.
“Reading Huckleberry Finn as a Sentimental Novel.” Reception Studies Society Conference.
Kansas City, MO. September 2007.
“Miss Ravenel’s Conversion: The Limits and Possibilities of the Historical Romance in 19th
Century American Fiction.” Southwest Popular Culture and American Culture Association
Regional Conference. San Antonio, TX. April 2004.
Poster Sessions:
Teaching Writing in Engineering—Description of the project and its results. January 2002.
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Learning, Instruction, and Teacher Development
(LITD) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Conferences Attended:
Faculty Summer Institute. Champaign-Urbana, IL. May 14-16, 2012. A three day series of
seminars and workshops on the effective use of teaching with technology.
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New Faculty Majority Summit. Washington, D.C. January 2012.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:
Service to the Discipline:
Representative Assembly and Bargaining Team Member for Faculty Union (UIC United Faculty).
January 2013-present.
Social Media Team. New Faculty Majority Summit. Washington, D.C. January 2012.
Conference Panel Chair. “The Civil War in American Culture.” The Legacy of the Civil War: An
Interdisciplinary Conference. Chesnutt Hill College. Philadelphia, PA. November 2011.
Referee for the journal Feminist Studies. 2011-the present.
Book reviewer for Reception Studies and the Journal of American Studies. 2011-the present.
Conference Panel Chair. “Disability and the Civil War.” Popular Culture and American Culture
Association National Conference. New Orleans, LA. April 2009.
Departmental and University Service:
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies—
During the Fall of 2012 I began working in the English Undergraduate Studies Office at UIC.
My first act was to create the administrative position that I have occupied for the past year and a
half. Originally, this position was called “English Advisor” and focused primarily on
undergraduate advising as well as career counseling. Under my guidance, this position shifted to
include a broad range of initiatives to recruit and retain English Majors at UIC. These included:
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Creating and maintaining a Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/EnglishUndergraduateStudiesatUIC.
Establishing a learning commons for the gateway course for new English majors
(English 240) http://uic240sharedworkspace.wordpress.com/
Working with department faculty to create a new course in Proofreading and Copyediting
Setting up focus groups to learn what extracurricular events English majors would be
interested in attending
Reviewing existing enrollment data for trends in student areas of study
Meeting with faculty in other departments to discuss course cross-listing initiatives to
encourage growth in English minors and double-majors
Contacting alumni to help build a network for English majors nearing graduation and
provide information on the current careers held by UIC English graduates.
Organizing a committee to examine procedures for evaluation of Lecturers and Teaching
Assistants in general education English courses.
Streamlining course description submission process
Rewriting department course evaluation form
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Assisting the Dean’s office in First Year Student outreach efforts to potential English
majors.
In addition to these duties I continued many of the activities assigned to the original English
Advisor’s position such as:
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Forwarding information about available courses to English majors via email listserv
Processing paperwork for Senior Thesis and Independent Study Projects
Uploading faculty syllabi to the Undergraduate Studies Blackboard site
Advising English majors in course selection and progress to degree
Meeting with English majors for career counseling
Managing the application process for Undergraduate English Awards
Setting up and chairing the Senior Thesis presentation day event
Organizing the Graduate School Workshop
Certifying English degrees
OTHER PROJECTS:
I maintain a professional blog on matters relating to Civil War literature and culture as well as
teaching practices at http://johnacaseyjr.com/. This site also serves as a venue to display my
current research and teaching materials.
You can also follow my Tweets on current research and teaching interests @JohnACaseyJr.
Assisted Professor Ann Feldman (Director of the UIC First Year Writing Program) in a summer
institute (2001) designed to train graduate student teaching assistants in the UIC Mechanical
Engineering department effective methods of teaching and evaluating student lab reports. I
conducted a research study to follow up on this summer institute, observing the implementation
of these techniques in two Mechanical Engineering courses. The results from this study were
presented at a poster session in 2002 that was sponsored by the UIC Center for the Study of
Learning, Instruction, and Teacher Development.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE ABILITIES/SKILLS:
I have reading knowledge in ancient Greek, French, and Spanish, and fluency in Latin.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS:
The Modern Language Association (MLA)
The New England Modern Language Association (NEMLA)
The American Studies Association (ASA)
National Council for College Teachers of English (NCTE)
The Reception Studies Society (RSS)
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The Popular Culture and American Culture Association (PCA/ACA)
The Society of Civil War Historians (SCWH)
The American Literature Association (ALA)
Stephen Crane Society
The Tennessee Historical Society (THS)
I also belong to several honor societies, among them Phi Beta Kappa and Eta Sigma Phi.
REFERENCES:
Judith Kegan Gardiner: Professor Emeritus, Department of English and Gender and Women’s
Studies Program (MC 162), 2027 University Hall, 601 South Morgan Street, University of
Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7120. (312) 413-9138. gardiner@uic.edu
Robin Sandra Grey: Associate Professor, Department of English (MC 162), 2027 University
Hall, 601 South Morgan Street, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7120.
(312) 413-2902. rgrey@uic.edu
Christopher Grimes: Director of Undergraduate Studies and Associate Professor, Department of
English (MC 162), 2027 University Hall, 601 South Morgan Street, University of Illinois at
Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7120. (312) 413-2253. cgrimes@uic.edu
Robert C. Lagueux: Senior Associate Director, Center For Advancing Teaching and Learning
Through Research and Lecturer, Department Of Music, 215G Snell Library, Northeastern
University, Boston, MA 02115. (617) 373-3791. r.lagueux@neu.edu
Christian Messenger: Professor Emeritus, Department of English (MC 162), 2027 University
Hall, 601 South Morgan Street, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7120.
(312) 413-2227. chrism1@uic.edu
Michael Perman: Emeritus Research Professor in the Humanities, Department of History
(MC 198), 913 University Hall, 601 South Morgan Street, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Chicago, IL 60607-7120. (312) 996-3141. mperman@uic.edu
Andrew Slap: Associate Professor, Department of History, 119 Rogers-Stout Hall ,
P.O. Box 70672, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 37614.
(423) 439-6801. slap@etsu.edu
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