Megan Tusler
Megan Tusler, MAPH preceptor
I received my PhD in English from the University of Chicago in 2015, where I have taught courses in comparative ethnic literature, the American novel and photography, and literary culture and urbanism. My undergraduate degrees from Mills College are in English and Ethnic Studies. My dissertation, American Snapshot: Urban Space and the Minor Archive, argues that minor and counter-culture movements in the 20th century US produce new versions of archiving in response to social crisis, particularly through the mode of the photo-text. My current monograph, On Other Loathing, explores race, misanthropy, and negative affect in the ethnic American novel. I am currently at work on two essay projects; one is a literary genealogy of the kitchenette apartment in American urban space and the other a piece on the western and liberal sentimentality in the 1950s. I have also volunteered in the curatorial department at the Chicago History Museum and been a Newberry Library fellow in the Ayer Collection of American Indian Studies. I enjoy sewing, thrift shopping, and Windy City Soul Club, and am the co-host of the podcast “Better Read than Dead: Literature from a Left Perspective.” I am a member of Faculty Forward/SEIU Local 73, the contingent faculty union at the University of Chicago.