Agata Szczeszak-Brewer
- Professor of English, John P. Collett Chair in Rhetoric
- Center Hall 205
- 765-361-6037
- brewera@wabash.edu
Agata Szczeszak-Brewer came to the United States from Poland as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar in 2002 and later completed her Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in 2006. She is Professor of English and John P. Collett Chair in Rhetoric at Wabash College, where she teaches courses on South African Literature, Irish Literature, James Joyce, 20th-century British and Irish Literature, and Postcolonial Theory, among others. She has published two books: Empire and Pilgrimage in Conrad and Joyce (University Press of Florida, 2010) and Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad (University of South Carolina Press, 2015). Her current book project is a comparative study of Irish and South African literatures.
Education
Ph.D., English, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 2006
M.A., English, University of Wroclaw, Poland, 2002
Recent Course Offerings
English 214–British and Irish Literature after 1900
English 397–Literary and Cultural Theory
English 340–James Joyce’s Ulysses (immersion course)
English 330–Postcolonial Literature and Theory
English 330—Studies in South African Literature (immersion course)
English 497–Senior Seminar, “South African Literature”
English 109–World Literature in Translation
English 197–Science and Speculative Fiction
English 101–Composition
English 398–Cultural Studies: The Wire
Recent Presentations
“Queer Nostromo,” International Joseph Conrad Conference. Lublin, Poland, 6/20-6/24/16.
“Stage Irish in 19th-century South African Writing,” at the American Conference for Irish Studies: University of Notre Dame, 3/30-4/3, 2016.
“a frantic spurious babble”: Writing Race in Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country, at the American Comparative Literature Association conference: Cambridge, MA, 3/16-3/20, 2016.
“Decoud, Dedalus, and the Anxiety of Patriotic Production,” at the MLA convention: Vancouver, Jan 2015.
35th LaFollette Lecture, "Itinerant Humanities: Learning from James Joyce’s Voluntary Exile" (October 3, 2014). News Story, YouTube
“Gendered National Martyrology in James Joyce’s Ulysses and Witold Gombrowicz’s Trans-Atlantyk,” at the 2014 International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies: Dublin, 6/10-6/14/2014.
“Demilitarizing gender: Drag and Disidentification in an All-male Performance of ‘Circe’,” at the 2012 International James Joyce Symposium: Dublin, 6/10-6/16/2012.
“‘A caterwaul of yearning’: Northern Ireland, Incest, and Ethnic Violence in Linda Anderson’s Blinding,” at the 2012 International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies, New Orleans, 3/13-3/17/2012.
“‘That Thing’: Joyce and the (Anti-)Aesthetics of Blood,” at the XXII North American James Joyce Conference in Pasadena, CA, 6/12-6/16/2011.
“The Irish eye/I: Joyce’s Molly, Anderson’s Lucy, and Female Subjectivity,” at the “How Normative Is Molly Bloom Now?” round table, 2011 International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 3/30-4/2/2011.
“Mocking Cartography: Joyce’s ‘non-places’,” at the XXII International James Joyce Symposium, Charles University, Prague, 13/6/2010-18/6/2010.
“‘Harlequin gives me the creeps’: Conrad’s Demons, Feminine Voracity, and Colonial Exorcism,” at the MLA Convention, San Francisco, 12/27/08-12/29/08.
“Conrad’s Priapic Dance,” at the MLA Convention, San Francisco, 12/27/08-12/29/08.
“Joyce’s Vagina Dentata: Manhood, Nationhood, and Female Vampirism,” at the “Re-nascent Joyce” XXIst International
James Joyce Symposium, Université François-Rabelais, Tours, France, 6/15 – 6/20/2008.
“The Celtic Caliban: Beyond Manichaeism in Late-Colonial Literature and Visual Culture,” at the American Comparative Literature Association 2007 Conference, Puebla, Mexico, 4/18/07-4/22/07.
“Ireland, Poland, India: Against ‘pathologies of power’ and ‘goblins of sectarianism’,” at SOFEIR (Institut du Monde Anglophone) 2007 “Ireland: Going East” conference, the Sorbonne, Paris, 3/16/07-3/17/07.
“Kulturkampf, Colonialism, and Celtic-Slavic Disenfranchisement,” at MPCA/MACA Irish Studies Area, Indianapolis, 10/27-06-10/29/06.
“A Fall into the Profane: Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Language,” at “Conrad’s Polish-Ukrainian Footprints”: IV International Joseph Conrad Conference at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland and the Polish Press Association Conference Centre, Kazimierz Dolny, Poland. 06/19/06-06/23/06.
“Mastering Chaos amidst Ghosts, Demons, and Foreigners,” at the XXth International James Joyce Symposium, Budapest, 06/11/06-06/17/06.
“Joyce the Player,” at “In Track of the Sun: Reflections on Joyce,” at the 17th Miami Joyce Conference, Coral Gables, 02/02/06-02/04/06.
“‘I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go’: The Profane Pilgrimage in James Joyce’s Ulysses,” at “Return to Ithaca” - 2005 North American James Joyce Conference; Cornell University. 06/14/05-06/18/05.
“‘Making Do’ Among Gringos and Cosas de Costaguana: Joseph Conrad’s Clandestine Insubordination,” at “Re-imagining Power,” Brandeis University. 03/11/05.
“Subverting the ‘Religion of Silver and Iron’: Conrad and Michel de Certeau,” at Thirtieth Annual International Conference of the Joseph Conrad Society (UK): London. 7/1/04 - 7/3/04.
Recent Publications
Books:
Critical Approaches to Joseph Conrad (ed). Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2015.
Empire and Pilgrimage in Conrad and Joyce. University Press of Florida. James Joyce Series. 2010.
Articles:
“Conrad’s Decoud and Joyce’s Dedalus: The Tragic Farce of Nationalism.” Conrad: Eastern and Western Perspectives. Vol 23. Columbia University Press. 2014.
“Joyce’s Vagina Dentata: Irish Nationalism and the Colonial Dilemma of Manhood.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 34:2 (2013).
“Teleology without a Telos?: Constitutive Absence in James Joyce’s Pilgrimage” in Displacing the Center: Pilgrimage in a Mobile World, Simon Coleman and John Eade (eds.), Mobilities Vol. 2, No. 3 (November 2007): 347-362.
“Conrad, Joyce, and the Development of Urban Psychological Cartographies.” Beyond the Roots: The Evolution of Conrad’s Ideology and Art. Wies?aw Krajka (ed.). Columbia University Press, 2005.
“Caribbean Hybridity and the Ironies of History: An Interview with Derek Walcott.” Yemassee Vol. XI, No. 1 (Fall 2003): 1-10.
Fiction:
“A Comma.” River Poets Journal. Vol 6, No. 3. Autumn/Winter 2012.
Honors & Awards
The Bruce Harkness Young Conrad Scholar Award for 2007 (from the Joseph Conrad Society of America, awarded at the 2008 MLA Convention)
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, “James Joyce’s Ulysses: Texts and Contexts,” Trinity College, Dublin, 6/25/07-8/4/07
Mellon Foundation grant and the Great Lakes College Association’s New Directions Grant to research gender performance in Jingju (Beijing Opera); $3,000; Shanghai, May 15 – June 5, 2012
Asian Studies workshop, East-West Institute, University of Hawaii at Manoa (Mellon Foundation grant), 6/20-7/1/2011
Newberry Library research grant, Chicago, 11/20/06-11/22/06
The Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Ambassadorial Scholars (2002-2004)