Literature

Academic and Career Pathways give you a roadmap to achieving your career goals. Follow a pathway based on your degree that outlines which classes you need to take and when so you graduate on time or move on to the next phase in your career.

• English Transfer Pathway, Associate in Arts

• Creative Writing, Certificate
• Professional Writing, Certificate

By studying Literature at College of DuPage, students will: 

Develop Critical Thinking Skills

• Practice close reading in order to formulate interpretations of literature that are grounded in evidence from primary texts.
• Apply terminology, practices, and theoretical methods associated with literary analysis.
• Analyze literary works for artistic complexity, depth and nuance.

Build Socially Responsible and Ethical Reasoning

• Analyze diverse literary works to develop social, historical and cultural comprehension.
• Examine works that are diverse in terms of genre, time period, place and conditions of publication and/or authorship.
• Communicate how the material conditions of publication, reception and dissemination affect literary works.

Communicate Ideas in Coherent and Creative Ways

• Formulate well supported arguments about literary works.
• Express ideas using rhetorical strategies and technologies suitable to audience and purpose.
• Articulate connections between literary texts and their various social and historical contexts.

Jim Allen

• PhD & MA: University of South Carolina
• BA: University of South Carolina--Spartanburg

Aside from his concentration in Composition and Rhetoric, Dr. James Allen has a background in Early American Literature and Science Fiction. He regularly teaches Science Fiction (1156) as well as World Literature (2226) as part of an Honors Learning Community Seminar on "Utopian and Dystopian Literature." In previous years has taught Introduction to Literature (1130).

Aleisha Balestri

• MA: DePaul University

Aleisha Balestri has a background in contemporary poetry and 19th-Century British Literature. Along with teaching First-Year Writing, she has also taught Poetry (1152) and Short Fiction (1150). 

Timothy Henningsen

• PhD & MA: University of Illinois at Chicago
• BS: University of Wisconsin

Dr. Timothy Henningsen has a background in transnational literary studies, with expertise in 19th century American & the origins of Caribbean literature. He regularly teaches Introduction to Literature (1130) and Short Fiction (1150), but also occasionally offers sections of Early American (2221) and Multicultural Lit (1161). Professor Henningsen is also COD's Chair of the Composition Program.

Lisa Higgins

• PhD, MA, & BA: University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Lisa Higgins has a background in American Literature and British Modernism. Prior to coming to COD, she taught at four universities and was a grant writer. She has taught the American Literature survey, Drama, Multicultural Literature, Short Fiction, Greek Mythology, Introduction to Literature, Bible as Literature and Poetry. She also teaches the Composition sequence. She is currently the Faculty Chair of the Honors Program. She is an advisor for the Honors Student Advisory Committee and The Page Turners, COD's book discussion club.

Melina Martin

• PhD & MA.: Northern Illinois University
• BA: Elmhurst University

Dr. Melina Martin has a research background in 19th-Century British literature, Early American literature, and transatlantic studies. Courses she teaches include Introduction to Literature (1130), Short Fiction (1150), Multicultural Literature (1161), and Masterpieces of World Literature (2226).

Nicole Matos

• PhD: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Dr. Nicole Matos is a specialist in first-year or "beginner" approaches to literature as well as contemporary, multicultural, and non-Western literature (that is, literature from nations and regions beyond just the United States and Western Europe--think, Africa, Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and so on). She is also a creative writer, having published 3 books of poetry and numerous fiction, digital media, and non-fiction pieces.

Jacqueline L. McGrath

• PhD. & MA: University of Missouri-Columbia
• BA: Eastern Illinois University

Dr. Jackie McGrath has a Ph.D. in English with a specialty in American Folklore Studies and a graduate minor in Women's and Gender Studies. She teaches English 1101 and English 1102, as well as Introduction to Literature (1130), Short Fiction (1150), and  Native American Literature (1160). Her work has been published in Southern Folklore, The Journal of American Folklore, The Journal of Folklore Research, and she is a former editorial board member of The Journal of Folklore and Education and a current member of the Illinois Education Association Board of Directors.

Michelle E. Moore

• PhD. & MA State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton
• B.A.: Dickinson College

Dr. Michelle E. Moore is the author of the book Chicago and the Making of American Modernism: Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald in Conflict (Bloomsbury Academic 2019) and coeditor of the collection Refocus: The Films of Paul Schrader (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). She has also published numerous articles in academic journals and chapters in academic collections. She gives papers regularly at national and international conferences on Modernism, American 19th and 20th century literature, and archival research. Her current research interests include the intersections of modern literature, film and architecture as well as online writing instruction and course design. She regularly teaches The Short Story, American Literature from the Civil War to the Present, Introduction to Film , and Film as Literature. She also teaches the Honors Composition sequence (1101, 1102).

Alejandra Ortega

• PhD: Purdue University
• MA: Wake Forest University
• BA: Michigan State University

Dr. Alejandra Ortega specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century transatlantic literature. She has published articles and chapters in edited collections on spatial theory, ecocriticism, postcolonial theory, gender, and narratology. Her current research interests address issues of identity and genre formation in Latine literature. She teaches Short Fiction (1150) and Multicultural Lit (1161). 

Jason Snart

• PhD: University of Florida
• MA & BA: University of Alberta

Dr. Jason Snart has published a number of books including his first, entitled The Torn Book: UnReading William Blake's Marginalia, which focuses on the annotations left in the books owned and borrowed by British Romantic-era poet and printmaker, William Blake. Snart's current research interests include online writing instruction and course design as well as blended/hybrid teaching. He regularly teaches Poetry (1152), British Literature from 1800 through the Present (2221). He also teaches College of DuPage's only online Honors course: Introduction to Literature (1130). Professor Snart is COD's English Department Chair of Literature, Creative Writing, and Film.

Tom Tipton

• PhD & MA: Northwestern University
• BA: University of Chicago

Dr. Tom Tipton has a research background in Old English and Middle English literature, with special focus on hagiographic poetry. Over the course of his 25 year career at the college, he has taught Introduction to Literature (1130), British Literature to 1800 (2220), and Shakespeare (2228).