E-mail
Jennifer Riddle Harding
Assistant Professor of English, Coordinator of the Professional Writing Program
Washington & Jefferson College
60 S. Lincoln St., Washington, PA, 15301
724-223-6137
jharding@washjeff.edu
Broadly speaking, I specialize in rhetoric and American literature. Zooming in a little more closely, I focus on figurative language, American short stories, and cognitive approaches to literary narrative. I teach a variety of courses on American literature, professional writing, and rhetoric. I love to pursue interdisciplinary questions in my research and teaching, and I participate in the following interdisciplinary programs: First Year Seminars; Gender and Women's Studies; Mind, Brain, and Behavior; and Professional Writing (which I coordinate).
Education
2004. Ph.D., English Language and Literature, University of Maryland (College Park, MD; dissertation directed by Mark Turner)
2000. M.A., English Language and Literature, concentration in Writing and Rhetoric, University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
1996. B.A., English, Lafayette College (Easton, PA)
1996. B.S., Psychology, Lafayette College (Easton, PA)
Publications
2011 "He Had Never Written a Word of That: Regret, Counterfactuals, and 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'." Forthcoming in the Hemingway Review.
2010 "Metaphor, Cognitive Distance, and Framed Narratives in Charles Chesnutt's 'Dave's Neckliss'." Conceptual Blending and the Study of Narrative. Ed Ralf Schneider and Marcus Hartner, forthcoming from de Gruyter.
2009. "Switching Places." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 21 June 2009: G1+.
2009. "Malia, Sasha, and Harriet." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 19 April 2009: G1+.
2008. "A Mind Enslaved?: The Interaction of Metaphor, Cognitive Distance, and Narrative Framing in Chesnutt's 'Dave's Neckliss'." Style 42.4, 425-447.
2007. "Extending the Classroom Space: Wikis, Online Discussions, and Short Fiction." Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction 8.1, 131-138.
2007. "Evaluative Stance and Counterfactuals in Language and Literature." Language and Literature 16.3, 263-280. [Winner of the PALA Prize 2007]
2005. "On Simile" (with Michael Israel & Vera Tobin). Language, Culture and Mind. Ed. Suzanne Kemmer and Michel Achard. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 123-135.
2003. "Gagged Petitions and Unanswered Prayers: James M. Whitfield's Anxious America." College Language Association Journal 47:2, 175-192.
1998. "Back (or Forward?) to the Future: Understanding Time as Movement Expressions" (with Matthew McGlone). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Memory, Learning and Cognition, 24:8, 1211-1223.
Current Projects
I am currently writing a new article on Charles Chesnutt's story "Her Virginia Mammy." I received a Kenneth M. Mason Grant from Washington & Jefferson college for summer research related to this article. My research included a trip to Chesnutt's hometown, Cleveland, Ohio.
I also recently adapted my article on metaphor in Charles Chesnutt's story "Dave's Neckliss," which was originally published in Style, for the forthcoming collection Blending and the Study of Narrative. I am also revising an article on counterfactual alternatives in Hemingway's story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" which has been accepted for publication in the Hemingway Review.
Recent Presentations and Awards
In the summer of 2010, I participated in a one-week seminar for professors of literature, "Five by Five: The Short Story as Art and Artifact," directed by Professor Louis Menand; the seminar was one of the Summer Institutes in Literary Studies held at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina.
In the past year, I have presented papers at the annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative (2010), and at the annual meeting of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (2009). In the past few years, I have also made presentations at conferences sponsored by the Northeast Modern Language Association, the American Literature Association, the International Cognitive Linguistics Association, the College Language Association, and the Linguistics Society of America.
I was selected to participate in one of the National Endowment for the Humanities' summer seminars in 2008. I studied narrative theory and ethics with other professors for six weeks under the direction of Professor James Phelan at Ohio State University.
My article "Evaluative Stance and Counterfactuals in Language and Literature" received the Poetics and Linguistic Association Prize, which is awarded annually to the best article appearing in the journal Language and Literature by a newcomer to the field.
Courses
In my courses, I challenge students to think, discuss, use technology, write well, argue clearly, and make creative and apt connections between literature, ideas, and culture. My personal goals as a teacher are to teach tolerance, to create an atmosphere in which students feel safe (to express themselves and take risks), and to use technology well to enhance learning.
The courses I have taught at W & J (2006-present):
First Year Seminar (FYS 199): The American Presidency in Fact, Fiction, and Film
Freshman Forum (FRF 199)
Honors Composition: The Rhetoric of Race in America (ENGL 112)
Introduction to Literature (ENGL 190)
Advanced Composition (ENGL 200)
Introduction to Professional Writing (ENGL 201)
Plantation Women in Fact, Fiction, and Film (ENG 214)
American Literature beginnings - 1865 (ENG 265)
American Literature 1865 - present (ENG 266)
Approaches to Language (ENGL 281/MBB 281), a team-taught intersession course
Advanced Professional Writing: Writing With and About Technology (ENGL 301)
19th Century American Short Fiction (ENGL 335)
African American Women (ENGL 343)
Senior Seminar: 20th Century American Short Story Cycles (ENGL 400)
At the University of Maryland, I also taught (1998-2005):
Introduction to Writing (ENGL 101)
Introduction to American Literature 1865-present (ENGL 222)
Introduction to African American Literature (ENGL 234)
Introduction to Literature by Women (ENGL 250)
Standard English Grammar (ENGL 281)
Intermediate Writing (ENGL 291)
African-American Literature to 1900 (ENGL 363, taught online for University of Maryland's University College)
Links
I am a member of these organizations:
Personal
In my spare time I like to travel and spend time with my family. Since 2006, I have lived in a 130-year-old house near the Washington & Jefferson campus with my husband and two sons. Prior to 2006, I lived in the Washington, D.C. area for ten years. In addtion to the schools and programs mentioned above, I am also an alumna of The School for Field Studies, Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, and Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School -- and I'm always happy to talk about any of the schools and programs I have attended, especially with those who might be thinking about applying themselves. For two years after finishing college I worked as a business analyst for American Management Systems, a consulting company now known as CGI-AMS.