Danielle Glassmeyer

Education

Ph.D., Loyola University Chicago

Teaching

My teaching philosophy focuses on helping students make their work in college strategic and intentional. 

I teach two of our professional pathways courses. As first years, English majors take ENG 181, where they create a personalized pathway of study; they research careers that value reading stamina, writing accuracy and insight, critical analysis, and the ability to decode complex messages, and end the semester by choosing a second major or minor that complements the department’s focus on professionalization. As Seniors, I get to guide students to research and create career materials for a career or grad school next step. Through this course, our majors land spots in selective programs in Law, Library and Information Sciences, Masters of Fine Arts, Counseling, Public Administration, and Non-Profit Leadership, along with a wide array of Masters programs, such as Psych, Social Work, English, and American Studies. Majors who choose to immediately enter careers use this course to research their target industry and key employers, and to create and execute the kind of networking strategies that have landed our grads roles in top-flight publishing houses, world-class non-profits, local, state and national government, marketing, user experience design, student affairs, grant writing, technical writing, and game design roles (among others!). 

My literature courses include Native American Literature, and American literature, film and culture of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century. I use an interdisciplinary approach. For example, in Native American Lit, we’ll study the history behind the literature, and how a history of displacement and genocide interacts with the story telling traditions that shape contemporary authors’ present literary works.

Students who take my literature courses will also study history, trauma studies, policy shifts in the US, and even a bit of international geo-politics – and film! Because my courses are interdisciplinary, they complement many majors or minors, and they provide English majors with a multi-dimensional practice for studying literature, film, and popular discourse. 

Scholarship

My current book project is called “Other People’s Children”; it studies the manipulation of the concept of ‘the child’ in popular literature and film, showing how these presentations deflect from bad impacts of social policies. This book covers a time period of about 150 years and analyzes real programs impacting children alongside the “fictional” representations of those children and programs. Key focuses include the US Indian Boarding Schools program, shifting policies on adoption, and recent shifts in definitions of personhood. 

Previous publications have included book chapters on Ridley Scott films, Disney films, and Cold War missionary Tom Dooley’s memoirs. In journals, I’ve published an article on The King and I as a Cold War film that motivated Americans to intervene in the political doings of Asia, one about remembrance of the Okinawa invasion in the popular press in relation to the film Teahouse of the August Moon, and an article on trauma and The Catcher in the Rye.

My goal in my scholarship is to make academic and scholarly writing accessible to readers who are not literary specialists.

Service

Currently, I am the Associate Chairperson in the Department of English, and the co-Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs. I’ve just started a role as our department admissions coordinator. 

For our College, I’ve served on Strategic Planning, Curriculum and Regulations, and the Agenda Committee. I’ve also been (and remain) a member of the Women’s and Gender Studies committee. 

On the University level, I have been a University Senator for 14 years, and I am serving now on the Shared Governance Committee. Previously I served as Faculty Ombudsperson from 2020-23, and as Coordinator of The Body Project.

Student Involvement Opportunities

I am eager to share what I know through mentorship or shared research. Write me a note to inquire!