Faculty and Staff
Marah Gubar
Associate Professor of English
Phone: 412-624-6132
Email: mjg4@pitt.edu
Fax: (412) 624-6639
Office: CL 517-B
Curriculum Vitae
Marah Gubar teaches and writes about children’s literature from a variety of periods, but she is especially interested in Victorian and Edwardian representations of childhood and the history of children’s theatre. She is the author of Artful Dodgers: Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children’s Literature, which was published by Oxford University Press and awarded the 2009 Children’s Literature Association Book Award. She has also published articles on Lewis Carroll, Juliana Ewing, Lucy Maud Montgomery, E. B. White, and Jack Gantos. She is currently working on a new book project, tentatively entitled Acting Up: Children, Agency, and the Case for Childhood Studies. Recent publications drawn from this project include “On Not Defining Children’s Literature” (PMLA 126.1) and “Peter Pan as Children’s Theater: The Issue of Audience” (Oxford Handbook of Children’s Literature).
This year, Dr. Gubar will be teaching “Children and Culture,” the gateway course to the Children’s Literature Program, during the Fall and Spring semesters; in the Spring, she will also offer a Junior Seminar for English majors on Victorian Country House novels.
Troy Boone
Associate Professor of English
Phone: (412) 624-6549
Email: boone@pitt.edu
Fax: (412) 624-6639
Office: 529 D (interior office of CL 526)
Troy Boone teaches and writes on children's literature in the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature and culture. He has published articles on Bram Stoker, Daniel Defoe, the Marquis de Sade, the Titanic disaster, the Salvation Army, Nancy Drew, tourist literature, Kenneth Grahame and E. Nesbit. His book Youth of Darkest England: Working-Class Children at the Heart of Victorian Empire (New York: Routledge) was published in 2005.
Courtney Weikle-Mills
Assistant Professor of English
Phone: 412-624-6558
Email: cweikle@yahoo.com
Fax: (412) 624-6639
Office: CL 628 G
Courtney Weikle-Mills specializes in early American children’s literature and culture. Her research and teaching interests include theories of citizenship, readership and literacy, the novel, transatlantic eighteenth-century studies, childhood studies, and the history of the book. Her current book project, which traces the child reader from the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, considers how and why children came to be central figures in the formation of the American reading public, instigating larger shifts in the cultural understanding of literature and citizenship.
She teaches courses on children’s literature and culture from a variety of periods, as well as classes on eighteenth and nineteenth-century American literature.
Amy Murray Twyning
Lecturer
Phone: 412-624-4114
Email: murraytwyning@gmail.com
Fax: (412) 624-6639
Office: CL 628-D
Amy Murray Twyning studies representations of children and childhood in the mid-Victorian period, in particular the relationship between the construction of childhood and the construction of modern subjectivity and individuality. She is especially interested in the novels of Charles Dickens and the children’s fantasy works of George MacDonald. Her current research investigates nineteenth-century children’s literature narrated from dolls’ perspectives. She teaches courses in the Children’s Literature program and in the Literature program. Some of her favorite courses include Childhood’s Books, Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature, and The Gothic Imagination.
Siobhan Vivian
Visiting Lecturer
Email: smv24@pitt.edu
Fax: (412) 624-6639
Office: CL 517-E
Siobhan Vivian is the author of the young adult novels NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL, SAME DIFFERENCE, and A LITTLE FRIENDLY ADVICE. She also co-wrote the picture book VUNCE UPON A TIME. She is a former editor at Alloy Entertainment, where she worked on several New York Times best-selling series, and a screenwriter for Playhouse Disney's THE LITTLE EINSTEINS. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School University in New York City, and her BFA in Writing for Film and Television from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
She teaches courses focused on the creative process of writing youth literature.
Lori Campbell
Lecturer and Departmental Advisor
Phone: 412-624-6559
Email: lmc5@pitt.edu
Fax: (412) 624-6639
Office: Cl 501-C
With emphases on Literary Fantasy, Myth and Folktale, Children's Literature, and the Gothic, Lori M. Campbell teaches courses in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literature and Cultural Studies, as well as in Composition. Her book, Portals of Power: Magical Agency and Transformation in Literary Fantasy, was published in February 2010 by McFarland and Company. The book explores the ways in which magical nexus points and movement between worlds are used to illustrate real-world power dynamics, especially those impacting women and children. Her other publications include articles on Thomas Hardy, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Frances Hodgson Burnett, J.M. Barrie, and William Morris, as well as introductions to new Barnes and Noble editions of classic works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Edward Lear. In addition to teaching and advising students in the English Department and Film Studies Program, Dr. Campbell is also the director of The Fantasy Studies Fellowship, a social and intellectual organization she established in 2005 for Pitt undergraduates dedicated to the study and appreciation of the Fantastic.
Valerie Krips
Associate Professor of English (Emeritus)
Email: vkrips@msn.com
Valerie Krips inaugurated the modern form of Pitt’s Children’s Literature Program. She works on children's literature and literary theory. Her book The Presence of the Past: Memory, Heritage and Childhood in Postwar Britain (Garland, 2000) combines children's literature with cultural studies, her other major area of interest. The Presence of the Past was awarded the Children’s Literature Association’s 2000 Honor Award, which recognizes outstanding book-length contributions to children’s literature history, scholarship, and criticism.
