Denell Marie Downum
Background
Professor Downum teaches Literature, Science Fiction/Fantasy as Literature, The City in Literature, 19th Century British Novel, English I, English II, and Public Speaking.
Education
Ph.D. City University of New York
BA Carleton College
Interests & Hobbies
Irish literature is Professor Downum's particular area of expertise, but more broadly she is captivated by the ways in which literature both reflects and helps to shape human experience. Many readers turn to books to find something we can relate to -- a voice or an experience that reaches across time and space to offer us the comfort of the familiar, and to express feelings and ideas that we have been unable to put into words. Often the best reading experiences, though, are the ones that take us by surprise, shocking us out of our comfort zones and encouraging us to expand our understanding of life and the world. As a reader, Professor Downum treasures these moments, and as a teacher of literature, she aims to help her students experience and make the most of them.
Her essays on Irish literature have appeared in scholarly journals including The Irish University Review, Eire-Ireland, and The Yeats-Eliot Review. She is currently at work on her first book, tentatively titled Sweeney Revisited: Irish Modernism and the Question of Authority.
