I believe that teaching is the most important component of the faculty role, and for me it is truly a joy to work with students. I am committed to helping them develop critical thinking skills, improve their writing, and explore the philosophical, theoretical, and cultural significance of literature. As we have worked to develop an interdisciplinary program in Digital and Media Studies, I have had the opportunity to develop teach a wide variety of courses rooted in my scholarly research and building on my technical proficiency. One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching in this applied program is the community connections and real-world projects students engage in. A selection of student projects is available on the Digital and Media Studies Showcase website
Some courses I've taught recently are listed below.
Shelangoskie, Susan. "Anthony Trollope and the Social Discourse of Telegraphy after Nationalisation." Journal of Victorian Culture, vol. 14, 2009, pp. 72–93. [abstract]
---. "Domesticity in the Darkroom: Photographic Process and Victorian Romantic Narratives." LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, vol. 24, no. 2, 2013, pp. 93–111. Taylor and Francis+NEJM, doi:10.1080/10436928.2013.785170. [abstract]
---. "‘Nerves of the Empire': Rhetorical and Literary Strategies in Submarine Telegraph Technological Travel Narratives." Britain and the Narration of Travel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Kate Hill, Ashgate, 2016, pp. 91–108. [abstract]
---. "Rethinking Propriety in the Age of Instantaneous Photography: E. W. Hornung's Camera Fiend." Victorian Literature and Culture, 2020/11/19 ed., vol. 48, no. 4, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 721–44. Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S1060150319000196.[abstract]
---. "Spiritualism and the Representation of Female Authority in Shaw's Getting Married." Upstage: Journal of Turn-of-the-Century Theatre, vol. 1, no. 2, Summer 2011, http://www.oscholars.com/Upstage/issue2/susan.htm.
---. "The Network Speaks: Public Discourse and the Failure of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable." Nineteenth-Century Contexts, vol. 38, no. 3, May 2016, pp. 209–18. CrossRef, doi:10.1080/08905495.2016.1159812. [abstract]
Shelangoskie, Susan. "Modernity and Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century America: Literary Representations of Communication and Transportation Technologies by James E. Dobson (Review)." Biography, vol. 42, no. 4, University of Hawai'i Press, July 2020, pp. 886–89. ProjectMUSE.
---. "Paul J. Nahin. Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons: From the Mathematics of Heat to the Development of the Trans-Atlantic Cable." Isis, vol. 112, no. 3, The University of Chicago Press, Sept. 2021, pp. 626–27. doi: 10.1086/715676.
---. "The Connected Condition: Romanticism and the Dream of Communication." Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Routledge, Nov. 2020, pp. 1–3, doi:10.1080/08905495.2020.1844453.
"What Did the Network Break? Telegraph Work and the Disruption of Cultural Narratives." Breaking the Network. University College Cork. Cork, Ireland (virtual). September 2021.
"Disrupting Propriety: The Unsettling Case of the Camera Fiend." North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA): Unsettling Victorians. Vancouver, Canada. (accepted for 2020; conference delayed until March 2022.
"'An Early Promise, Incautiously Made to the Shareholders': The Transatlantic Telegraph and Public Discourse." Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States: Victorian Stakes & Stakeholders. Seattle, WA. November 2019.
"New Media and Social Disruption: Telegraph Workers in the Popular Press." NAVSA: Media. Genre. The Generic. Columbus, OH. October 2019.
"Modified Memories: Re-writing Telegraphy's Past." Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies (INCS): Monuments and Memory. Dallas, TX. March 2019.
"'Forward': Victorian Technology Consuming Travel Culture?" Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA): Consuming Cultures. Kansas City, MO. November 2018.
"'The Narrow Counter on which the Human Lot Was Cast': The Telegraph Counter as Mediating Agent." INCS: Series, Cycles, and Suspensions. San Francisco, CA. March 2018.
"Disrupted Travel: The Subversive Story of the First Transatlantic Cable." MMLA: Artists and Activists. Cincinnati, OH. November 2017.
"Technological Treasure and Human Trash: E. W. Hornung's The Camera Fiend." INCS: Odd Bodies. Philadelphia, PA. March 2017.
"'Nerves of the Empire': Submarine Telegraph Travel Narratives and Imperial Adventure." MMLA: Border States. St. Louis, MO. November 2016.
"Negotiating Shakespeare with Digital Tools." Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference: Negotiating Shakespeare. Bowling Green, OH. October 2015.
"'Nerves of the Empire': Submarine Telegraph Technological Travel Narratives and Imperial Control." NAVSA Conference: Victorians in the World, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI. July 2015.
"Electric Mobilities: Gendered Representations of Telegraph Workers in the Victorian Periodical Press." INCS: Mobilities. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. April 2015.
Shelangoskie, Susan and Jennifer L. Brown. "Mysterious News to Revealing Narrative: The Reconstruction of History through the Fictionalization of the Case of John Tawell." Victorians Institute Conference: Mysteries at Our Own Doors. Charlotte, NC. October 2014.
"Technology's Treasure and Human Trash: E. W. Hornung's The Camera Fiend." Victorian Popular Fiction Association Conference: Victorian Treasures and Trash. University of London, London, England. July 2014.
Shelangoskie, Susan and Jennifer L. Brown. "Despicable Death: Unmannerly Violence in the Case of John Tawell." Midwest Victorian Studies Association Conference: Victorian Violence. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. April 2014.
"Mastering Energies of Expansion: Adventure Fiction and Submarine Telegraph Discourse." INCS Conference: Nineteenth-Century Energies. University of Houston, Houston, TX. March 2014.
Shelangoskie, Susan and Jennifer L. Brown. "Evidentiary Eyes: Analyzing Technological, Imaginative, and Circumstantial Evidence in the Case of John Tawell." NAVSA Conference. Pasadena, CA. October 2013.
"Capturing the 'Kwaker': Creating the Social Value of the Telegraph." Northeast Modern Language Association 2013 Convention. Tufts University, Boston, MA. March 2013.
"The Network Speaks Back: The Electric Telegraph as Object Narrator." NAVSA Conference: Victorian Networks. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI. September 2012.
"Domesticity in the Darkroom: Photographic Process and Romantic Narratives." INCS Conference. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. March 2012.
"Nerves of the Empire: Rhetorical and Literary Strategies in Technological Travel Narratives." Travel in the Nineteenth Century: Narratives, Histories, and Collections. University of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England. July 2011.
"'Pythoness of the Tripod': Spiritualism and Female Authority in Getting Married." Internationl Shaw Society Conference. American University, Washington, DC. October 2009.
My research focuses on the intersection of technology, culture, and narrative in the Victorian period. I am particularly interested in the cultural and narrative representations of telegraphy and photography, two watershed technologies that radically altered ways of communicating and visualizing starting in the mid-nineteenth century and leading to the ubiquitous technologies that surround us today. By understanding how these technologies influence cultural discourse and storytelling in the past, I believe it is possible to understand more fully the interactions between technology and culture today.
I am currently working on several projects to further this research agenda. One is a study of the representation of telegraph workers in popular short fiction. These pop-fiction stories often demonstrated the disruptive potential in these new technologies and highlighted how new technology practices disrupted existing social systems and engaged recursively with dominant social discourses.
Another project is a discourse analysis study of the story of John Tawell, a real-life murderer who became famous as the first criminal caught by the electric telegraph. This project involves collecting as many accounts of this story from newspapers, letter, books, broadsheets, and other sources and analyzing how the representation of this killer and the telegraph change over time to coalesce into a cultural myth.