Jana Giles

Professor

School of Humanities

walk 3-117

318-342-1516

Jana M Giles, PhD
Professor, English

Education

Ph D

2009, English Literature
University of Cambridge

MA

1994, English/Creative Writing
University of New Mexico

BA

1988, Liberal Arts
St. John's College (Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM)

Biographical Sketch

Jana M. Giles received her PhD from the University of Cambridge, her MA in English (Creative Writing/Fiction) from the University of New Mexico, and her BA in Philosophy/Liberal Arts from the Great Books Program at St. John’s College. As a bilingual person of mixed Puerto Rican and Anglo-American heritage, her interests focus on the cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic complexities of contemporary life. An enthusiastic environmentalist, she also pursues research on nature and ecocriticism.

Her academic publications have appeared or are forthcoming in Conradiana, The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Inquiry, Papers on Language and Literature, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Samuel Beckett Today/Au’jourdhui, The Journal of Contemporary Thought, Women: A Cultural Review, Joseph Conrad Today, and Kudzu House; and in the anthologies The Sublime Today, Beckett Re-Membered: After the Centenary, and New Approaches to Dubliners.

She has also published in The New York Times Book Review, THE: Santa Fe's Monthly Magazine of the Arts, Blue Mesa Review, Rosebud, Carve Magazine, and The Albuquerque Journal.

Giles has been the Managing Editor of Conradiana, the premiere journal of Joseph Conrad studies in the United States, since 2015, and offers internship opportunities for students to work with her on editing the journal.

She as the faculty advisor for the newly reformed Green HOPE Club, which seeks to increase ULM student engagement with environmental concerns, and is the past faculty advisor of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society (2009-2017).

She is a keen traveler, amateur photographer and supporter of the arts, and from 2012-15 served on the board of the Masur Museum in Monroe. Currently she serves on the board of New Music on the Bayou.

Licensure & Certification

Accredited External Reviewer, Association of Departments of English and Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. (January 6 2020 - Present)

Research Interests

Her current book project, The Post/Colonial Sublime: Aesthetics, Politics, and Ethics in the Twentieth Century Novel, examines novels by Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, Jean Rhys, Joan Lindsay, J.M. Coetzee, and Amitav Ghosh to demonstrate how their use of the aesthetics of the sublime constitutes a posthumanist critique of colonialism.

Research Interests:

Modernism and New Modernist Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Aesthetics and Art, The Sublime, World Literature, Puerto Rican Studies, Latinx Studies, Posthumanism, Ecocriticism, Feminist and Gender Studies, Criticism and Theory, Creative Writing

Recent Publications

Giles, J. M. Interview Given.

Giles, J. M. Nancy Cunard (pp. 2000 words). https://www.litencyc.com/: Literary Encyclopedia.

Giles, J. M. Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad (pp. 3000 words). https://www.litencyc.com/: Literary Encyclopedia.

Giles, J. M. Typhoon and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad (pp. 3000 words). https://www.litencyc.com/: Literary Encyclopedia.

Giles, J. M. (2024). 'Some silly woman story': Realizing the Ideals of the Revolution in 'The Duel: A Military Tale' (pp. 26). Pisa and Rome: FICTIONS Studi sulla narratività.

Giles, J. M. Ch. 8: The Sublime (7000 words). Cambridge: The Cambridge Companion to World Gothic Literature, Cambridge University Press.

Giles, J. M. (2024). Of a Superior Kind and an Inextinguishable Nature: Writing the New Man and New Woman in "Falk: A Reminiscence" (pp. 47-64). London: The Conradian.

Giles, J. M. (2024). Reading the Suffering Body: Schopenhauer and Ethics in Conrad's "Falk". New York: The Routledge Companion to Joseph Conrad.

Giles, J. M. “The worn-out earth of our possession”: Environment, Empire, and Modernity in Conrad’s “Falk”. Modern Fiction Studies.

Giles, J. M. The Postcolonial Sublime (pp. 8000 words). Oxford: The Oxford Handbook of the Sublime.

Giles, J. M. (2022). “The Planetary Sublime in Conrad’s Nostromo: Nature, Rhetoric, Empire.”. London: The Conradian.

Giles, J. M. (2023). Review of Modernism and the Idea of the Crowd by Judith Paltin. Lubbock, TX: Conradiana.

Giles, J. M. (2019). New Music on the Bayou Event Planned. West Monroe: Ouachita Citizen.

Giles, J. M. (2021). The Beating Heart of Sublime Empire: The Secret Agent as Sequel to Heart of Darkness (pp. 153-186). Basingstoke: Joseph Conrad and Postcritique: Politics of Hope, Politics of Fear/Palgrave Macmillan Mac.

Giles, J. M. (2019). "Beauty Does Not Own Itself": Coetzee's Feminist Critique of Platonic and Kantian Aesthetics (pp. 87-109). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: Reading Coetzee's Women.

Giles, J. M. (2015). Dogpaddling Against the Tide: Integrating Ecocriticism into a New Graduate English Course in a Southern Public Regional University (pp. 32). Gainsville, Florida: Kudzu House.

Giles, J. M. (2019). Review of Commonwealth of Letters: British Literary Culture and the Emergence of Postcolonial Aesthetics. Silverdale, Washington: Joseph Conrad Today.

Giles, J. M. (2018). Conrad's Avant-Garde Sublime: Spectacular Language, Nature, and the Other in Typhoon (pp. 163-208). Lubbock, Texas: Conradiana.

Giles, J. M. (2017). Language and Literature in the World: Conrad's Footsteps and Reading Coetzee's Women (pp. 7). Edwardsville, Illinois: Papers in Language and Literature.

Giles, J. M. (2015). Review of Joseph Conrad and the Anxiety of Knowledge, by William Freedman (pp. 6). Edwardsville, IL: Papers on Language and Literature.

Giles, J. M. (2012). "Of Gods and Dogs: The Postcolonial Sublime in Coetzeeâs Disgrace, or David Lurie's Aesthetic Education" (pp. 13-48). Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: The Sublime Today (edited collection).

Giles, J. M. (2012). "The Aesthetics of the Dispossessed: Sublime Vagrancy in Beckett and Wordsworth" (pp. 208-27). Newcastle Upon Tyne: Beckett Re-Membered: After the Centenary/Cambridge Scholars Press.

Giles, J. M. (2014). "Can the Sublime Be Postcolonial? Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide" (pp. 1-20). Cambridge: Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry.

Giles, J. M. (2010). What Makes A Great Novel? And Which Ones Deserve a Place on the Program? (pp. 12-17). Annapolis, MD: The College/St. John's College.

Giles, J. M. (2010). Review of Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, by Jeremy Hawthorn. Annapolis, MD: Joseph Conrad Today.

Giles, J. M. (2009). "Radical Agendas: Beverley Naidoo, The Other Side of Truth" (pp. 342-51). Milton Keynes: Children's Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, The Open University.

Giles, J. M. (2009). "The Aesthetics of Relinquishment: Natural and Social Contracts in Beckett's 'The End'" (pp. 5-23). online: SIAR: The Journal of the Western Institute of Irish Studies.

Giles, J. M. (2009). Review of Cultural Sites of Critical Insight: Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Native American Women's Writing, ed. Angela L. Cotten and Christa Davis Acampora (pp. 114-15). Abingdon, Oxon: Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

Giles, J. M. (2008). "Billie Holiday". New York: Oxford Encyclopedia of African American HIstory, 1896-Present.

Giles, J. M. (2008). "Dignifying Labor" (pp. 113-15). Abingdon: Women: A Cultural Review.

Giles, J. M. (2008). "Negro: An Anthology by Nancy Cunard". New York: Oxford Encyclopedia of African-American History, 1896-present.

Giles, J. M. (2008). "The Aesthetics of Relinquishment: Natural and Social Contracts in Beckett's 'The End'" (pp. 175-88). Amsterdam: Samuel Beckett Today/Au'jourdhui/Rodopi.

Giles, J. M. (2006). "Regendering the Postcolonial Nation" (pp. 385-87). Abingdon: Women: A Cultural Review.

Giles, J. M. (2006). "Puerto Rico the Disappeared: The World's Oldest Colony in the World's Youngest Empire" (pp. 15-41). Baroda, India, and Ellensburg, WA: Journal of Contemporary Thought.

Giles, J. M. (2005). "Disfiguring Perceptions" (pp. 124-26). Abingdon: Women: A Cultural Review.

Giles, J. M. (2003). "In the Tradition: American Borderlands, Voices from American's Many Cultures" (pp. 1340-45). New York: The Bedford Anthology of World Literature.

Giles, J. M. (2002). "The Landscape of the Other: Aesthetics, Representation , and the Post-Colonial Sublime in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea" (pp. 156-83). Pittsburgh, PA: Ma'Comere/Assoc. of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars.

Giles, J. M. (1997). "The Craft of 'A Painful Case': A Study in Revisions" (pp. 195-201). Amsterdam: New Approaches to Dubliners/Rodopi.

Research Grants

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "ULM Opportunity Fund" (Awarded, Not Yet Funded), Sponsored By ULM, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $400-2400. (April 23 2024 - Present).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "NEH Fellowship" (Pending Funding Decision), Sponsored By National Endowment for the Humanities, External to The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $30,000. (April 10 2024 - Present).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Creative Writing Fellowship" (Not Funded), Sponsored By Vermont Studio Center, External to The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $5000. (October 1 2023 - Present).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Creative Writing Fellowship" (Awarded, Not Yet Funded), Sponsored By Vermont Studio Center, External to The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $. (February 15 2023 - Present).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Endowed Professor in English Literature" (Funded), Sponsored By ULM Foundation, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $10000 per annum. (July 1 2016 - Present).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "NEH Fellowship" (Not Funded), Sponsored By National Endowment of the Humanities, External to The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $60000. (June 1 2024 - May 31 2025).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "LSUS Student Scholars Forum 2023" (Funded), The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $1362.50. (January 31 2023 - March 1 2023).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), ""The Postcolonial Sublime: Aesthetics, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Twentieth Century"" (Funded), Sponsored By BORSF/ATLAS, External to The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $38,057. (July 1 2018 - June 30 2019).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Travel Grant" (Funded), Sponsored By School of Humanities, ULM, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $200.00. (January 5 2016 - January 10 2016).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Salary Recovery Grant" (Funded), Sponsored By College of Arts, Education, and Sciences, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $700. (November 12 2015 - November 15 2015).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Dean's Faculty Support Fund Mini Grant" (Funded), Sponsored By College of Arts, Education, and Sciences, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $700. (January 5 2015 - January 12 2015).

Giles, J. M. (Principal), "Dean's Research Fund" (Funded), Sponsored By College of Arts, Education, and Sciences, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, $1177. (November 6 2014 - November 9 2014).

Awards & Honors

January 2023 UL Outstanding Faculty.

August 2019 ULM Foundation Award for Excellence in Research.

July 2019 J.H. Stape Conradiana Essay Prize.

April 2019 Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, College of Arts, Education, and Sciences.

2018 Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS).

2017 Phoenix Award, Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

July 2016 Endowed Professor in English Literature, University of Louisiana at Monroe, 2016-present.

2015 Nominated for ULM Foundation Research Award.

2015 Nominated for ULM Foundation Service Award.

September 2013 McKneely Professor in English Literature, University of Louisiana at Monroe, 2013-2016.

2013 Nominated for Tom and Mayme Scott Endowed Professorship in Teaching Excellence.

2010 Colloquium Speaker of the Year, ULM Honors Program.

2010 Top Ten Faculty and Staff, ULM Mortar Board.

2008 Emerging Scholar Award, American Conference for Irish Studies--West.

2008 Travel Grant for Non-Tenure Track Members, Modern Language Association.

2006 Members' English Fund Scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2004-2006.

2006 Brian Pippard Bursary, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, 2003-2006.

2005 The J. Barbara Northend Scholarship, British Federation of Women Graduates.

2005 Cambridge Overseas Trust Research Scheme Equivalent Bursary, University of Cambridge, 2005.

2003 Outstanding Teaching Assistant of the Year, University of New Mexico.

2003 Graduate Fellowship for Minority Students, University of New Mexico, 2001-2003.

2002 Inaugural Recipient, Joseph C. Gallagher Scholarship for Study in Ireland, University of New Mexico.

2002 Graduate Research, Project and Travel Grant, University of New Mexico.

2002 English Department Fellow, University of New Mexico.

2002 Buchanan-Arms Award for Excellence in Scholarship, University of New Mexico.

1997 First Prize, Graduate Student Creative Writing Competition, Blue Mesa Review.

1997 Creative Writing Retreat Grantee and Resident, Vermont Studio Center.

1993 Creative Writing Fellow, University of New Mexico.

1988 Presidential Scholarship, University of New Mexico.

Courses Taught

ENGL 1001Composition I, 8 course(s)

ENGL 1002COMPOSITION II, 8 course(s)

ENGL 1010HONORS COMPOSITION, 6 course(s)

ENGL 2001ENGLISH LITERATURE I, 1 course(s)

ENGL 2002ENGLISH LITERATURE II, 17 course(s)

ENGL 2003WORLD LITERATURE I, 3 course(s)

ENGL 2004WORLD LITERATURE II, 12 course(s)

ENGL 2007HONORS ENGLISH, 5 course(s)

ENGL 2011TRADS IN WORLD LITERATURE, 4 course(s)

ENGL 2050EXPLORATIONS IN LITERATURE, 2 course(s)

ENGL 3013INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL, 1 course(s)

ENGL 400619TH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL, 4 course(s)

ENGL 400720TH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL, 4 course(s)

ENGL 4016MODERN EUROPEAN FICTION, 5 course(s)

ENGL 4025LITERARY CRITICISM, 10 course(s)

ENGL 4075ROMANTIC MOVEMENT, 2 course(s)

ENGL 4076VICTORIAN PERIOD, 5 course(s)

ENGL 4080INTERNSHIP IN TECH & PROF COMM, 13 course(s)

ENGL 5008ENGLISH LIT 1800 TO PRESENT, 6 course(s)

ENGL 5025LITERARY CRITICISM, 1 course(s)

ENGL 5050ADVANCED LITERARY THEORY, 1 course(s)

ENGL 506119TH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL, 2 course(s)

ENGL 506220TH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL, 2 course(s)

ENGL 5063MODERN EUROPEAN FICTION, 1 course(s)

ENGL 5076VICTORIAN PERIOD, 1 course(s)

ENGL 5080INTERNSHIP TECH & PROF COMM, 3 course(s)

Jana M Giles, PhD Professor, English