I took a year off after I graduated in 2013 to work on my graduate applications and teach writing as an adjunct at CSUN and the East LA college. Then, in 2014, I was admitted into to the University of Florida to the English doctoral program with a Kirkland Fellowship (20,000 a year for four years and a year off from teaching in addition to a tuition waiver). I also received the CSU Chancellor's Office Doctoral Incentive program (10,000 loan renewable for up to three years). I am currently on my last semester of coursework and am working on my exam materials for year three. My first article just came out about a week ago through Cambridge Scholars Press in the text Frontiers in American Children's Literature and is entitled "Twilight Online Fandom: Cixous’ Ecriture Féminine and the Digital Text." I will be presenting this paper at the upcoming American Literature Association conference in San Francisco this summer. I teach one class a semester (with a 19 student cap) and have had the opportunity to teach first-year writing and also two special topics courses including "Writing about Media: Gender-Bending the Gothic" and "Writing about Disability Studies: Extraordinary Bodies in Print and Visual Culture." I'm also slated to teach a lower division British Literature II survey course next semester. As far as leadership, I was vice president of the English Graduate Organization last year and helped run professionalization workshops and a conference on "How to Talk about Horror." I'm currently co-president EGO and am gearing up to plan our fall conference entitled "Futures Near and Far: Utopia, Dystopia, and Futurity." My current research interests include the British long nineteenth century and media studies and I'm currently working on two graduate certificates, one in Women's Studies and another in the Digital Humanities. I'm still working through my dissertation project idea, but I imagine it will be a study of Gothic texts in the early, mid, and late parts of the long nineteenth century to investigate lesser known writers engage with and react to the ableing and disabling of sexually deviant bodies within the period. I'm also investigating potential connections to mid century Mexico. I'll be working through this project idea with my chair, Dr. Pamela Gilbert, and her summer dissertation group as I prepare for exams.
On my free time, I roam nature and visit the alligators in the local nature preserve. I live alone in an apartment with a view of a pond and my neighbors are ducks, herons, and ibis birds. I hope all is well over there! I miss everyone and will come visit sometime in early summer. Take care!
Kindest regards,
Norma Aceves