Michael C. Bartch
Department of English215 Glenbrook Road, Unit 4025
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06269
E-mail: / 103A Furnace Ave
Stafford Springs, CT 06076
Ph: (406)239-4674
Education
Ph.D. (ABD), University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, Department of English, expected May 2016.
M.A., University of Montana, Missoula, MT, Department of English, 2009.
Thesis: “Reinvention in the Line of Death: A Reconsideration of Geoffrey Hill’s Commemorative Verse”
B.A. Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO, Department of English, 2007, Summa Cum Laude.
Dissertation
“National Elegy: The Form of Public Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Britain” (in progress)
“The National Elegy” charts the development of a Romantic national poetics that is integral to understanding the formation of the Victorian liberal public sphere. Ranging from Wordsworth’s Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty(1802-16) to Thomas Hardy’s wartime poetry (1923), the project examines the ways in which poetry revitalizes itself as part of a vibrant nineteenth-century British public discourse that also includes periodical journalism, public lectures, the novel, and school textbooks. By studying the critical and poetic works of William Wordsworth, Arthur Hallam, Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and Thomas Hardy,we can better understand both the forms ofpublic discourse andthe role of poetry within them. Instead of treating the Romantic, Victorian, or Modernist period discretely, this literary history represents a continuous, longnineteenth century through the interaction of poetic and nationalist projects.
Research and Teaching Interests
Nineteenth-Century British literature, History of Criticism, Poetics and Prosody, Reception Theory, Contemporary British and American Poetry, and the Elegy.
Courses Taught
(Solely responsible for teaching, content, and syllabi development. Individual syllabi available upon request.)
University of Connecticut, Storrs
ENGL 3118: Victorian Literature Survey (1 Semester): This course introduces students to British literature from 1830 to 1900 with a particular emphasis on prosody, poetic development, and poetic theory. Students charted the perpetuation of Romantic aesthetics in the nascent child labor movement through the essays of John Stuart Mill, Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, and the pastoral poems of John Clare. The examination of the pastoral in Clare continued in a reading of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. The course culminated with pre-Raphelite aesthetics, the Italianate sonnet form, and Thomas Hardy’s reconsideration of that aesthetic in Jude the Obscure (Fall 2013).
ENGL 2011: Honors Literary Study Through Reading and Research (1 semester): This course develops students’ ability to think critically about cultural products of various kinds, and to engender an awareness of the myths of modernity such that they will become better and more informed critical readers of their environments and experiences. The course opened by introducing students to Roland Barthes’s theorization of myth. Students then interrogated the myth of property in John Locke and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the myth of childhood in Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, the myth of true love in film versions of Pride and Prejudice, and the myth of modernity in eighteenth-century pastoral poetry. The course concluded by asking students to consider their own cultural myths in the context of Francois Lyotard’s The Post-Modern Condition (Spring 2015).
ENGL 1010/1011Seminar in Academic Writing: Writing through Literature (7Semesters): This course develops students’ abilities as writers of academic prose. It is the required First-Year Writing course at the University of Connecticut.
•“Language, Inheritance, and Loss,” which focused on the historical development of the British elegy. Authors included John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, Charlotte Smith, John Clare, William Wordsworth, Geoffrey Hill, Sylvia Plath, and John Berryman. (Fall 2010).
•“Writing the American Short Story: Horizons of Concern,” which focused on the American short story. Authors included Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Timothy O’Brien, and James Joyce. (Spring 2011).
•“Food Writing,” which explored gastronomic representation in print and visual media. Authors included Julia Childs, Anthony Bourdain, Alton Brown, and Elizabeth David (Fall 2011)
•“Representing Poetry,” which examined the various conventions of poetry and prosody in the ballad, sonnet, and rondelforms (Spring 2012).
•“Magazine Modernism,” which reframed the historical formation of Modernity through the lense of little magazines using the online Modernist Journals Project (Spring 2014)
•“The Circle Must Be Complete: The State of the Subject in the Digital Age,” which considered the ways in which the political subject has changed in the millenial period through David Eggers’ novel The Circle, and the theoretical work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière (Fall 2014)
•“Spheres,” which considered theoretical formations of public spaces: the political sphere through work of Jacques Rancière, the social sphere through the work of Jürgen Habermas, the digital sphere through the work of Francois Lyotard, and the commerical sphere through the work of Roland Barthes (Fall 2015)
•“The Wallace Stevens Poets,” which interrogated the aesthetic, historical, and political formation of the annual Wallace Steven Poet award at the University of Connecticut (Spring 2016)
ENGL 1004: Introduction to Academic Writing (5 Semesters): This course prepares students for the academic discourse and the writing tasks that they will encounter in the required First-Year Writing course at the University of Connecticut. The course emphasizes the conventional and technical aspects of academic writing.
•“The Idea of the University,” which asked incoming students to interrogate the status and position of the university (Summer 2011).
•“The Art of Place,” which asked students to consider how a place is defined and understood through its artistic representations (Summer 2012).
•“The Form of Poetry,” which asked students to think through the intellectual work that form does in various genres (Fall 2012).
•“Bad Bob in the Midst: Bob Dylan in the 1970,” which looked at the work of Bob Dylan through a variety of methodological lenses (Spring 2013)
•“Writing through Genre,” which asked to students to think critcally about the work that form does in cultural media, including the short story, food writing, and film (Summer 2013)
University of Montana
ENEX 101 [WRIT 101]: Introduction to College Composition (4 Semesters): This course introduces students to the requirements of college level composition. It is the required Composition course at the University of Montana.
Other Academic Work (Non-Teaching)
University of Connecticut, Storrs:
Freshman English Mentor (Spring 2012; Fall 2013)
Freshman English Orientation Oversight Committee (Summer 2011)
Freshman English Orientation Implementation Committee (Summer 2011)
Conference Papers (selected):
“Hallam’s Italian Amour: The Construction of British Victorianism,” North American Victorian Studies Association Annual Conference, Arizona State University, Pheonix, AZ, November 2016.
“Italy, Hallam, and Adonais,” North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Annual Conference, University of California, Berkley, CA, August 2016.
“Poetic Nationalism: Reviewing Wordsworth in 1816,” Northeastern Modern Language Association Annual Conference, University of Connecticut, Hartford, CT, March 2016.
“Forms of Remembering in the Art of Allusion,” Australasian Victorian Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, February 2015.
“Thomas Hardy, the Modern Elegy, and Modernist Temporality,” “We Speak a Different Tongue”: Modernist Voices and Modernity, 1890-1939, International Conference, St. John’s College, Durham University, UK, July 2013.
“The Characters of Joyce’s Resistance,” North American James Joyce Conference, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, June 2009.
“The Poetic Resistance of Geoffrey Hill and John Milton,” Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, May 2009.
Invited Talks
Guest Lecturer on Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam, ENGL 4401: Advanced Studies in Poetry: The Elegy. Dr. Charles Mahoney, University of Connecticut Storrs, Fall 2014.
“Some Notes on the Late-Victorian Sonnet.” Colloquium of On-Going Research. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, November 2013.
Guest Lecturer on Geoffrey Hill’s elegies, ENLT 401: Capstone Seminar on Literature (Death and Literature), Dr. Ashby Kinch, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, April 2009.
Events Organized
“Academic Editing,” English Graduate Student Association: Professional Development Committee, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, February 2011.
“Negotiating the Ph.D. at UConn,” English Graduate Student Association: Professional Development Committee, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, October 2010.
University and Community Service
Elected President of English Graduate Student Association, AY 2011-2012.
Elected President of the English Graduate Student Association, AY 2012-2013.
Elected Chairperson of English Graduate Student Association: Professional Development Committee, Spring 2011.
Member of the English Graduate Student Association: Professional Development Committee, 2010-2011.
Professional Associations
Modern Language Association of America
Modernist Studies Association
North American Victorian Studies Association
Australasian Victorian Studies Association
North American Society for the Study of Romanticism
Languages
French; Latin (reading proficiency)
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