Jennifer Riddle Harding
Associate 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
2013 "Reader-Response Criticism and Stylistics." A chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Stylistics. Forthcoming from Routledge.
2013 "Presidential Washington" (with W. Thomas Mainwaring). A self-guided walking tour describing fifteen Presidential visits to Washington, Pennsylvania. Downloadable Walking Tour Brochure
2012 "Narrating the Family in Charles W. Chesnutt's 'Her Virginia Mammy'." Journal of Narrative Theory (special issue "Decolonizing Narrative Theory") 42.3: 309-331.
2012 "Teaching in a Wikipedia World." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 16 Dec. 2012: B1+.Read this article.
2012 "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. Boston: de Gruyter, 229-251.
2011 “Hallowed Ground.” Pittsburgh Post Gazette 12 Sept. 2011. Read this article.
2011 "Democracy on Flight 93." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 2 July 2011. Read this article.
2011 "He Had Never Written a Word of That: Regret and Counterfactuals in Hemingway's 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'." The Hemingway Review 30.2, 21-35.
2009. "Switching Places." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 21 June 2009: G1+.Read this article.
2009. "Malia, Sasha, and Harriet." Pittsburgh Post Gazette 19 April 2009: G1+. Read this article.
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 recently coordinated the plans for a one-day symposium on Rebecca Harding Davis at Washington & Jefferson College on Saturday, April 13, 2013 (Symposium website: Rebecca Harding Davis Symposium). Davis was born in Washington's historic Bradford House, and was later a graduate of the Washington Female Seminary; the Seminary's former site is located on the Washington & Jefferson campus. The symposium, a special issue of the Washington & Jefferson journal Topic, and a formal dedication ceremony celebrated the installation of a new state historical marker for Rebecca Harding Davis in Washington, PA. It is the first state historical marker dedicated to a woman in Washington County!
I have also been engaged in research for a book on figurative language in fiction; I expect to start writing chapters in 2014. I will present initial work on puns at the Poetics and Linguistics Association conference in Heidelberg, Germany in July, 2013.
Recent Presentations, Seminars, and Awards
In June 2012, I attended a seminar on slave narratives at Yale University taught by historian David Blight. 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. I also received a Kenneth M. Mason, Sr. Summer Grant for Faculty Research from Washington & Jefferson College, which helped me write the article "Narrating the Family in Charles W. Chesnutt's 'Her Virginia Mammy'." These experiences have also aided my preparation in courses on American Literature, African American Women, and the American Short Story.
In recent years, I have presented papers at the annual conference of the Modern Language Association (2013), the Midwest Modern Language Association (2012), International Society for the Study of Narrative (2010), and Poetics and Linguistics Association (2011, 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. From this experience, I was able to develop the course Reading Fiction (ENG 250).
My article "Evaluative Stance and Counterfactuals in Language and Literature" received the Poetics and Linguistic Association Prize in 2007, which is awarded annually to the best article appearing in the journal Language and Literature by a newcomer to the field.
Courses and Service
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.
I teach the following courses at W & J:
First Year Seminar (FYS 199): "In Your Head": Consciousness in Fact, Fiction, and Film
Honors Composition: The Rhetoric of Race in America (ENG 112)
Introduction to Literature (ENG 190)
Introduction to Professional Writing (ENG 201)
Plantation Women in Fact, Fiction, and Film (ENG 214)
Reading Fiction (ENG 250)
American Literature beginnings - 1865 (ENG 265)
American Literature 1865 - present (ENG 266)
Approaches to Language (ENG 281/MBB 281), a team-taught intersession course
Advanced Professional Writing: Writing With and About Technology (ENG 301)
American Short Fiction (ENG 350)
African American Women (ENG 343)
Senior Seminar: African American Short Fiction (ENG 400)
I am also a member of the Curriculum and Program Committee, coordinator of the interdisciplinary Professional Writing program, advisor to the Green House (a theme house devoted to sustainable living), a member of the Sustainability Committee, and advisor to several English majors and first year students.
Links
I am a member of these organizations and communities:
- The Poetics and Linguistics Association (I am the Northeast American ambassador for PALA; please contact me with any questions!)
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 – I love Washington D.C. and I still manage to return often, sometimes bringing students with me on field trips. For two years after finishing college I worked as a business analyst for American Management Systems, a consulting company now known as CGI-AMS.
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