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Dr. Janine Utell, Widener University
CHESTER, PA (12/16/2013)(readMedia)-- Dr. Janine Utell of Philadelphia has been named the 2013 outstanding researcher in humanities by Widener University's College of Arts and Sciences. Utell is an associate professor and chair of English at Widener.
Utell's research has made her an internationally recognized scholar of James Joyce and British literary modernism. Her first book, "James Joyce and the Revolt of Love," was published with Palgrave Macmillan in 2010. It has garnered critical praise as a cutting-edge contribution to Joyce studies. She has since published articles on Joyce and other writers of his time in peer-reviewed journals such as "James Joyce Quarterly," "The Journal of Modern Literature" and "College Literature," for which she is an associate editor.
Utell's colleagues have recognized the symbiotic relationship between her scholarship and teaching. From 2005 to 2007, she oversaw the annual James Joyce exhibition at The Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia. The project was influenced by her teaching, but it also allowed her to bring to her students – particularly those in her Senior Seminar course on Joyce's "Ulysses" – a mixture of theoretical and practical knowledge.
More recently, Utell has pursued an agenda concentrating on print, digital and visual narrative and narrative theory, which she applies specifically to narratives about couplehood and intimate life. Her next book, "Engagements with Narrative," is under contract with Routledge and due out in August 2014. She is also working on an extended study of intimate life writing in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Utell has taught at Widener since 2003. She earned a bachelor's degree in English and creative writing and French from Barnard College, Columbia University. She earned a master's degree in English from The Catholic University of America, where she focused on 20th-Century British Literature. She then earned a Ph.D. in English from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where her major field was British Modernism/20th-Century Studies.
Widener University is a private, metropolitan university that connects curricula to social issues through civic engagement. Dynamic teaching, active scholarship, personal attention, leadership development and experiential learning are key components of the Widener experience. A comprehensive doctorate-granting university, Widener is comprised of eight schools and colleges that offer liberal arts and sciences, professional and pre-professional curricula leading to associate, baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees. The university's campuses in Chester, Exton, Harrisburg, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., serve some 6,500 students. Visit the university website, www.widener.edu.
