CLAIRE BARBER-STETSON

Department of English
University of Illinois
608 South Wright Street
Urbana, IL 61801

cbarberstetson.strikingly.com

132 N. Jefferson St., Apt. 342

EDUCATION
PhD, English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, August 14, 2014
Affiliate, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
MA, English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, December 2008
Specialization: Modern British Literature and Disability Studies
BA, Literature, American University (magna cum laude), May 2006
Minor: Language and Area StudiesFrench/Europe
Senior Thesis: Queering Translation: The Multiple Identities of Samuel Becketts
En attendant Godot
DISSERTATION
Aesthetics, Poetics, and Cognition: A New Minor Literature by Autists and Modernists, 1914-2014
The literary style common among individuals with autism spectrum disorders, such as Craig
Romkema, has striking poetic affinities with experimental modernist literature by such authors as
H.D., T.S. Eliot, Edith Sitwell, Hugh MacDiarmid, Gertrude Stein, and Samuel Beckett. By
analyzing this resemblance, my dissertation reveals a common disabling logic in modernist literary
criticism and the psychological theory of weak central coherence.
Director: Joseph Valente
Committee: Vicki Mahaffey, Samantha Frost, Andrew Gaedtke
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed
Slow Processing: A New Minor Literature by Autists and Modernists. Journal of Modern
Literature 38.1 (Fall 2014): 147-165.
A Vibrant Autistic Aesthetic and the Limits of Art Brut. Journal of Literary & Cultural
Disability Studies (revised and resubmitted)
Works in Progress
Whatever Happened to Edith Sitwell? (journal article to be submitted to
Modernism/modernity in the summer of 2015)

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Book Reviews
Has Death Come for Modernism? Rev. of The Legacies of Modernism: Historicising Postwar and
Contemporary Fiction, ed. David James. Journal of Modern Literature 37.2 (Winter 2014):
191-198.
Beware the Rays of Imitation. Rev. of Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks, Tony
D. Sampson. Reviews in Cultural Theory. 1 Jul. 2013. Web.
Rev. of Front Lines of Modernism: Remapping the Great War in British Fiction, Mark D. Larabee.
Modern Fiction Studies 58.2 (Summer 2012): 375377.
Encyclopedia Entries
Gyre, Edith Sitwell, and Robert Graves. Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. Ed.
Stephen Ross. (forthcoming)
Online Articles for the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory (Kritik)
Being Care-ful toward Books, Children, and Individuals with Disabilities. 27 Nov. 2013.
Disabled Sexualities: Those Who Shouldnt Have Sex and Why. 20 Nov. 2012.
A Dearth of DisabilityStudies. 15 Nov. 2011.
Toril Moi: What Does It Mean to Claim that Sex, Gender, and the Body are Socially
Constructed? 2 Nov. 2010.
The Color Blue: A Response to Lynne Joyrich. 27 Feb. 2010.
FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND AWARDS
Fellowships
Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship, UIUC (201314)
Only English Department student to win university-wide competitive award
Tamise Van Pelt Fellowship, UIUC (Spring 2013)
Competitive English Department award for a student working in psychoanalysis or
disability studies
The Network for Neuro-Cultures Fellowship, UIUC (201213)
Competitive award for six UIUC students in the humanities with interest in cognitive
science (declined)
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Fellowship, UIUC (Summer 2011, 201112, 201213)
Competitive award within the English Department
Nicholson Fellowship, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory (Summer 2011)
Competitive award for two graduate students to attend the Cornell School of
Criticism and Theory
Roxanne Decyk Fellowship, UIUC (200708)
Competitive award for one first-year female graduate student in English

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Grants

Presidential Scholarship, American University (200206)

Awards
Elizabeth Rusk Funds, Dept. of English, UIUC (2014)
Special Field Exam, Passed with Distinction, UIUC (March 18, 2011)
Outstanding Presentation by a Junior or SeniorArts and Humanities, Ann Robyn Mathias
Student Research Conference, American University (2006)
TEACHING AWARDS
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, UIUC (Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009,
Spring 2010, Fall 2010)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Theorizing Modernism: Philosophy and Criticism, with Robert Pippin and David
Wellbery (University of Chicago), June 19July 28, 2011
Second Annual Finnegans Wake-End, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, November 13,
2010.
Cours de civilisation, Universit Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France, JanuaryJune 2005
John Cabot University, Rome, Italy, AugustDecember 2004
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
Slow Processing. American Studies, Smith College, Northampton, MA, Fall 2015.
Watt in Diaspora: The Liberatory Possibilities of Disordered Movement. Presented at Queer
Irish Diasporas, Queering Ireland, Buffalo, NY, August 910, 2013.
Eva Trout as a Bildungsroman. English 543: Seminar in Modern British Literature, Taught by Vicki
Mahaffey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, April 25, 2013.

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The Alien Metaphor: Why Autistic Brains Scare Neurotypicals. Invited onto Neuroscience at the
Margins by Melissa Littlefield. 26th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science,
and the Arts, Milwaukee, WI, September 2730, 2012.
Disability Studies. GWS 590: Inside/Outside Discourses of the Body, Taught by Chantal Nadeau,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, October 17, 2011.
Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot. English 110, Taught by Jim Hansen, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, April 7, 2009.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Slow Processing: Literary Movement toward an Autistic Cognitive Style. At Disability Studies
across the Disciplines, English Graduate Student Association, Urbana, IL, May 12, 2014.
Disordered Development: Orlando and Eva Trout as Modernist Bildungsromane. 129th Annual
Meeting of the Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, January 912, 2014.
Literary Modernism as Cognitive Style. 14th Annual Meeting of the Modernist Studies Association,
Las Vegas, NV, October 1821, 2012.
Why Modernist Scholars Should Appreciate Autistic Stereotypies. At Modern Brains: Literary
Studies and the Cognitive Sciences, British Modernities Group Conference, Champaign, IL,
March 910, 2012.
Polychromatic Chaos: An Autistic Poetics in Modernism. 13th Annual Meeting of the Modernist
Studies Association, Buffalo, NY, October 69, 2011.
The Emergence of an Autistic Aesthetic. At The Poetics of Pain: Aesthetics, Ideology, and
Representation, CUNY Dept. of Comparative Literature Conference, New York City, NY,
February 2526, 2010.
Understanding the Other: The Ungraspable Writings of Individuals with Autism Spectrum
Disorders. At Inscribing the Impossible: Instances of the Letter in Psychoanalysis,
Cornell Psychoanalysis Reading Group Conference, Ithaca, NY, April 2425, 2009.
Fantastic Bodies: The Bright Young Things in Evelyn Waughs Vile Bodies. In Modernism and
the Fantastic Seminar at the 10th Annual Meeting of the Modernist Studies Association,
Nashville, TN, November 1316, 2008.
Sympathetic Coercion: Re-inscribing the Feminine Body in Daniel Deronda. At British Bodies,
British Modernities Group Conference, Urbana, IL, April 45, 2008.
Queering Translation: The Multiple Identities of Samuel Becketts En attendant Godot. At
Translation and Transitions, University of Miami Graduate Student Conference, Miami,
FL, February 1516, 2008.

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TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Instructor
English Department, Marquette University
English 1002: Rhetoric and Composition 2, Public Sphere Literacy (2 sections, Spring 2015)
English Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
English 101: Introduction to the Study of Poetry (1 section, Fall 2010)
English 200: Introduction to the Study of Literature (1 section, Fall 2009)
Rhetoric 105: Principles in Composition (6 sections, Fall 2008Fall 2010)
Teaching Assistant
English Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
English 110: Introduction to Literary Study for Non-Majors, James Hansen (1 section,
Spring 2009)
ACADEMIC AND RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Research Assistant
Chantal Nadeau, Chair, Dept. of Gender and Womens Studies, UIUC, 2010Present
Identified resources and edited text to support the development of multiple book
manuscripts and articles, including Queer Courage and the Birth of a New Nation (U of Minnesota
P), Ma vie en rose (Ashgate), and White Niggers of America: Manifesto for Queer Desire and
Liberationist Ethnocentrism (Radical History Review), while also collaboratively creating
syllabi for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, including Postcolonial/Queer,
Queering Legal Cultures, and Inside/Outside Discourses of the Body.
Lead Organizer
The Great War: Transnational Literary Responses, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities,
20142015
Founded this new reading group to coincide with the centenary of World War I and UIUCs
campus-wide initiative The Great War: Experiences, Representations, Effects. Participants will meet
monthly to discuss fiction, drama, and poetry produced transnationally during the WWI era,
as well as current critical responses to these works and literary reinterpretations of the War.
Literature Representative
Colloquia Committee, English Graduate Student Association, 20132014
Developed and actualized a two-day colloquium called Disability Studies across the
Disciplines by soliciting funding ($3725) from 18 different sources, arranging the
participation of two prominent off-campus scholars, writing a CFP, assembling panels,
creating a WordPress-driven website, and running the event itself. With the Writing Studies
representative, I also located a need for, brainstormed ideas, and coordinated a series of six
presentations aimed at supporting students interested in alternative academic careers.
Project Discovery Communications Team Member
Department of Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010Present
Began by learning departmental guidelines for business documents in multiple formats,
including memorandums, reports, and business letters, and then progressed to grading
grammar, style, and formatting for documents from upper-level Accountancy classes. Until

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2013, I provided individual support by holding weekly office hours to provide one-on-one
writing guidance and, after program changes, mastered online grading with Turnitin.
Lead Organizer
British Modernities Group, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, 20112012
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Suggested the annual theme, British Brains, for which I selected group readings that
connected cognitive science and studies of British literature while also organizing the spring
conference, Modern Brains: Literary Studies and the Cognitive Sciences (wrote CFP,
secured conference facilities and speakers, and raised $2,600 in funding).
Research Assistant
Joseph Valente, Professor, Dept. of English, UIUC, 20092010
Compiled a comprehensive bibliography of literature (scientific, critical, and
autobiographical) related to autism, literary modernism, and disability studies that later
provided the structure for a year-long independent study (Fall 2010Spring 2011) and
supported the development of his latest book project, Autism and Moral Authority in
Modern Literature.
Project Management Specialist
Dept. of Children and Youth, Dr. Gertrude A. Barber National Institute, Erie, PA, 20062007
Researched funding opportunities and coordinated grant submissions for an approved
private school that serves children with developmental disabilitiesprimarily, autism
spectrum disorders(one proposal awarded $177,000 by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Public
Welfare) while working with authors to develop a 300-page technical manual of instructional
strategies for children with ASDs.
Academic Editing
National Council of Teachers of English publications (books and journals, including College
English, College Composition and Communication, and Research in the Teaching of English)
Urbana, IL, 20092012
Collaborative Dubliners: Joyce in Dialogue, Ed. Vicki Mahaffey (Syracuse UP, 2012)
Joseph Valente, The Myth of Manliness in Irish National Culture, 1880-1922 (U of Illinois P,
2010)
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Journal-Related
Editorial Board Member, Disability Studies Quarterly
Review Board Member, The Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal
Conference-Related
Panel Respondent, Creatures, Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, University
of WisconsinMilwaukee, February 2021, 2015

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Seminar Organizer, The Feeling(s) of Modernism, MSA 2014, with Meghan Marie
Hammond (U of Chicago)
Panel Organizer, Exposing Conventional Vulnerabilities: Disability Studies and Modernist
Literature, MLA 2014 (Janet Lyon, Claire Barber, Joseph Valente); included in
Presidential Theme
Panel Chair, Late Modernism and Spectacle, MSA 2012 (Jane Malcolm, Paul Stasi, T. J.
Boynton)
Panel Organizer, Modernist Spectacles of Disability, MSA 2012 (Ch: Maren Linett, Matt
Franks, Anna Stothers, Claire Barber)
Department-Related
Presenter, Everything You Wanted to Know about Preliminary Exams, English Graduate
Student Association Workshop (November 13, 2013)
Co-Organizer, British Modernities Group (201112)
Grievance Committee Representative, English Graduate Student Association (201112)
Literature Representative, English Graduate Student Association (200910)
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Modernist Studies Association
Society for Disability Studies
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
Modern Language Association
LANGUAGES
French, fluent
Italian, conversational
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
British literature of the early to mid-20th century
Disability studies
Autism studies
Cognitive neuroscience and psychology
Cognitive literary criticism
Literature of wartime experience
Critical theory
REFERENCES
Joseph Valente, UB Distinguished Professor of English and Disability Studies
Department of English
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
306 Clemens Hall

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Buffalo, NY 14260
Email: [email protected]
Vicki Mahaffey, Kirkpatrick Professor of English and Gender and Women's Studies
Department of English
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Email: [email protected]
Chantal Nadeau, Professor
Department of Gender and Womens Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1205 W. Nevada St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Email: [email protected]
Samantha Frost, Associate Professor
Departments of Political Science and Gender and Womens Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
420 David Kinley Hall MC-713
1407 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801
Email: [email protected]
Andrew Gaedtke, Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Email: [email protected]