Christine Cusick Ph.D.
Joined Seton Hill
2006
Hometown
Pittsburgh, PA
Contact Info
Cusick@setonhill.edu

Christine Cusick earned her Ph.D. in English at Duquesne University with specializations in Twentieth Century British and Irish Literature and Environmental Humanities. Her research and publications are in the areas of Irish Studies, Ecocriticism, Creative Nonfiction, Writing Pedagogy and Cultural Geography.

Education

  • Ph.D., English Literature, Duquesne University
  • M.A., English Literature, St. Bonaventure University
  • B.A., Summa Cum Laude, English and Philosophy, St. Bonaventure University

Publications

  • Unfolding Irish Landscapes: Tim Robinson, Culture and Environment. Edited Collection with Derek Gladwin. Manchester, UK: Manchester UP (forthcoming)
  • "'And now intellect, discovering its own effects': Tim Robinson as narrative scholar.’" Unfolding Irish Landscapes: Tim Robinson, Culture and Environment. Eds. Christine Cusick and Derek Gladwin. Manchester, UK: Manchester UP (forthcoming)
  • "'A capacity for sustained flight': Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Ecology of Avian Encounter." Representing Animals in Irish Literature and Culture. Eds. Kathryn Kirkpatrick and Borbala Farago. London: Palgrave, (2015)
  • "'Clacking along the Concrete Pavement': Economic Isolation and the Bricolage of Place in James Joyce’s Dubliners." Eco-Joyce: Space, Place, and Environment in the Writings of James Joyce. Eds. Robert Brazeau and Derek Gladwin. Cork: Cork University Press, (2014)
  • "A Door Held Open: Francis Harvey's Invitation to Listen." This Landscape's Fierce Embrace: The Poetry of Francis Harvey. Ed. Donna Potts. New York: Cambridge Scholars Press, (2013)
  • “Tourmakeady Snow.” Extended Family: Essays on Being Irish American. Ed. James Silas Rogers. Dufour Editions, (2013)
  • "Mapping Placelore: Tim Robinson’s Ambulation and Articulation of Connemara as Bioregion." The Bioregional Imagination. Eds. Cheryll Glotfelty, Karla Armbruster & Tom Lynch. Athens: The University of Georgia Press (2012)
  • “Sharing Stories: Research, Technology, and Listening to Student Knowledge.” Let the Games Begin!: Engaging Students with Interactive Information Literacy Instruction. Theresa McDevitt, Ed. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. (2011)
  • Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts. Edited Collection. Cork: Cork University Press, (2010)
  • “A Mindful Path: An Interview with Tim Robinson." Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts. Edited Collection. Cork: Cork University Press, (2010)
  • “Remembering our Ecological Place: Environmental Engagement in Barbara Kingsolver’s Nonfiction.” Seeds of Change: Critical Essays on Barbara Kingsolver. Ed. Priscilla Leder. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, (2010)
  • “Feminist Faculty Negotiate the Land of Both/And” with Laurie McMillan, Ph.D. Studies in the Humanities. (December 2009)
  • “Moments of Story: Rachel Giese’s The Donegal Pictures.” Ireland in Focus: Film, Photography and Popular Culture. Eds. Eóin Flannery and Michael Griffin. Irish Studies Series. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. (2009)
  • Review Essay: Weaving Tapestry in Rural Ireland: Taipeis Gael, Donegal by Meghan Nuttall Sayres; photographs by Laurence Boland, tapestries by Taipeis Gael. New Hibernia Review: Irish Eireannach Nua. 13.1 (Spring 2009).
  • Review Essay: Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds by Sam Keen. The Literary Bird Journal: Avian Life Literary Arts. 1.1 (Fall 2008).
  • Review Essay: Forest Park: A Journal by Joel Weishaus. “Rhetorics of Place: The Importance of Public Spaces and Public Spheres.” Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 5.3 (2005).
  • “‘Our language was tidal’: Poetics of Place in the Poetry of Moya Cannon.” New Hibernia Review: Iris Éireannach Nua.9:1. (Spring 2005): 59-76.
  • “Elizabeth Bowen, 1899-1973,” Irish Women Writers: A Guide. Ed. Alexander Gonzalez. Greenwood Press. (November 2005)
  • “Moya Cannon, 1956-.” Irish Women Writers: A Guide. Ed. Alexander Gonzalez. Greenwood Press. (November 2005)
  • Review Article: As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender and Art by Rebecca Solnit. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 10.2 (2003).

Awards

  • Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award, Seton Hill University (2010)
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Duquesne University, 2003-2004.
  • Research Assistantship, Duquesne University, Summer 2002.
  • Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship, Duquesne University, 2001-2002.
  • Full Tuition Scholarship, Duquesne University, 1998-2002.
  • Teaching Fellowship, Duquesne University, 1998-2001.
  • Graduate Assistantship with the Integrated Honors College: College of Arts and Sciences, Duquesne University, 1997-1998.
  • Presidential Scholarship, St. Bonaventure University, 1993-1997.
  • Outstanding English Graduate Student, St. Bonaventure University, 1997.
  • St. Bonaventure University, Graduate Student Assistant for and Participant in the Francis E. Kelley Oxford Program. Somerville College, Oxford University. 1995-1997.
  • Boyd Litzinger Medal for Excellence in the English Undergraduate Curriculum, St. Bonaventure University, 1996.

Organizations

  • National Council for Teachers of English
  • International Association for the Study of Irish Literature
  • Conference on College Composition and Communication
  • Northeast Modern Language Association
  • American Conference for Irish Studies
  • Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment

Presentations

  • "'A capacity for sustained flight': Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Ecology of Avian Encounter." International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. University College Dublin: Dublin, Ireland. June 2014.
  • “Honors Education and the Liberal Arts: Mindful Dialogue on the Imperative of Diversity.” Diversity Forum. National Collegiate Honors Council: National Conference. New Orleans, LA. November 2013.
  • "Harnessing iTunesU and iBooks tools to Enhance Teaching and Learning." International Society for Technology and Education. San Antonio, TX, June 2013.
  • "Honors Curriculum and Social Engagement: The Value of Going Home Again.” National Collegiate Honors Council: National Conference. Boston, MA. November 2012.
  • “ ‘Measured Loosening of the Earth’ Narrative Negotiation of Coastal Boundaries in Colm Tóibín and Tim Robinson.” International Association for the Study of Irish Literature. Montreal, Quebec. August 2012.
  • "'The Tideline between Place and Story'": The Role of the Irish Writer in (Re)Imagining Ecological Boundaries and Borders." .” International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. New Orleans, LA. March 15-March 18, 2012.
  • “The Bioregional Imagination: Scholarly Roundtable.” The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Biennial Conference. Bloomington, IN. June 21-26, 2011.
  • “The Compass for our Shared Space: Student Knowledge and iPad Integration.” Teaching with iPads: Motivation, Inspiration, Alienation in the Appleverse. Computers and Writing. Ann Arbor, MI. May 19-22, 2011.
  • “‘If stories come to you, care for them’: Ecocritical Narrative Scholarship and Oral Histories in Contemporary Ireland.” International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. Madison, WI. March 30-April 2, 2011.
  • “Where are We Now?: Ecocriticism and Narrative Scholarship.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Los Angeles, CA. January 6-9, 2011.
  • “‘And now intellect, discovering its own effects’: Reading Tim Robinson’s Connemara as Narrative Scholarship.” Ireland and Ecocriticism: An Interdisciplinary Conference. University of Limerick, Limerick Ireland. June 18-19, 2010.
  • “Ecological Epistemology in Moya Cannon’s Carrying the Songs.” International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. State College, PA. May 4-6, 2010
  • “The Lure of the Local: Environmental Invitation in Michael Viney’s A Year’s Turning.” American Conference for Irish Studies International Conference. Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway. 10-13 June, 2009
  • “‘The Dreaming Memory of Land’: Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood and a Place-Based Writing Pedagogy.” Connections and Community: Reinhabitory Principles in Bioregionalism and Literary Field Studies. Northeast Modern Language Association. Boston, Massachusetts. February 26- March 1, 2009.
  • “ ‘Where Trees have Outgrown their Shelter’: An Ecofeminist Reading of Contemporary Irish Poetry.” Lifting Belly High: A Conference on Women’s Poetry Since 1900. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA. September 11-13, 2008.
  • “‘Delicate Discriminations’”: Tim Robinson’s Connemara and the Lingering Hope of Natural Histories.” International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. Davenport, Iowa. April 16-18, 2008
  • “Embracing Our Place: Economic Class and Writing for Change.” Apathy to Activism at the Catholic University. National Convention for the Conference on College Composition and Communication. New Orleans, Louisiana. April 1-5, 2008.
  • "‘Known Grace in Stone’: The Cultural Bioregionalism of Ireland's West.” The Seventh Biennial International Conference for the Association for Literature and the Environment. Spartanburg, South Carolina. June 12-16, 2007.
  • “Conjuring Place: Workshop in Creative Nonfiction.” The Seventh Biennial International Conference for the Association for Literature and the Environment. Spartanburg, South Carolina. June 12-16, 2007.
  • “‘Home is the Range of One’s Instincts’: Writing Place and Justice into the Composition Classroom.” Northeast Modern Language Association. Baltimore, Maryland. March 1-4, 2007.
  • “‘What do we say any more to conjure the salt of our earth?’: Romantic Influences on the Poetry of Seamus Heaney.” Romanticism, Environment, Crisis: Centre for Romantic Studies. University of Wales, Aberystwyth. 23-27 June 2006.
  • “Excavating Ecological Promise Through Cultural Studies.” American Conference for Irish Studies, National Meeting. St. Louis, MO. April 19-22, 2006.
  • “‘We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time’: D.H. Lawrence and the Amblings of a Modernist Nature Poet.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Washington D.C., December 2005.
  • “Engaged Learning: Creative Assignments in Higher Education.” Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Pittsburgh, PA, November 17-22, 2005.
  • “‘Vulnerable Again in the Air of Another Age’: Contemporary Irish Writing and Environmental Engagement.” American Conference for Irish Studies, National Meeting. University of Notre Dame. South Bend, Indiana. April 13-17, 2005.
  • “‘Sailing on Stones’: Tim Robinson’s Ethnography of a Coastal Community.” The Fifth Biennial International Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Boston University, June 2003.
  • “Susan Clements’s In The Moon When The Deer Lose Their Horns and an Integration of Story’s Place.” Division of American Indian Literatures. Modern Language Association Annual Convention. New York, New York, December 2002.
  • Respondent, “Teaching Anti-War Literature.” The Radical Caucus in English and the Modern Languages. Modern Language Association Annual Convention. New York, New York, December 2002.
  • “Ecocriticism: Exploring the Maps of Nature.” Guest Speaker, Universalist Unitarianism Church of Ligonier Valley, Ligonier, PA. October 6, 2002.
  • “‘Convenient Fictions’ of Terrain and Time: Remembrance of Place in Irish Emigrant Letters.” American Conference for Irish Studies, New England Meeting. Boston University, September 28-30, 2001.
  • “‘Dublin Rises Out of What Reflects It’: Place and Female Identity in Eavan Boland’s The Lost Land.” American Conference for Irish Studies, National Meeting. Fordham University, New York, NY, June 7-10, 2001.
  • “‘We Call it Nature’: The Poetry of Denise Levertov and Social Constructions of Nature.” Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Hartford, Connecticut. March 30-31, 2001.
  • “‘Trying to Paint the Land as if it Had No History’: The Exile’s Union of Nation and Place in Colm Tóibin’s The South.” American Conference for Irish Studies, Mid-Atlantic Meeting. College of Mount St. Vincent, Riverdale, NY, October 27-28, 2000.
  • “Mapping a Place Called Ireland: National Identity and the Construction of an Urban Landscape in Ciaran Carson’s Belfast Confetti.” American Conference for Irish Studies, Mid-Atlantic Meeting. University of Delaware, October 29-30, 1999.
  • “‘Without Words’: Language, History, and the Destabilization of Power in Carol Ann Duffy’s Standing Female Nude.” W2K: Women on the Verge, Women’s Studies Conference. Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, September 17-18, 1999.

Performances

  • "A Call to Tea." Public Reading of Creative Nonfiction: Jackson Square. International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. New Orleans, LA. March 15-March 18, 2012.
  • “Confluence: A River Story.” Public Reading of Creative Nonfiction for Over the Edge: A Showcase of ACIS and Galway Writers. Galway City Library. Galway, Ireland. 11 June, 2009.

Achievements

  • Invited Keynote Speaker at the International Conference for Ireland and Ecocriticism hosted by University College Cork. (Cork City, Ireland, June 2014)
  • Invited Plenary Speaker at the International Meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. (Chicago, IL, 2013)
  • Invited member of the Board of Advisory Editors for the quarterly peer-reviewed journal New Hibernia Review. Area of expertise: Environmentalism. (2011-present)
  • Invited Speaker for the Perspectives on Tim Robinson Symposium, supported by the Archipelago Research Project of the Moore Institute of National University of Ireland Galway, The British Academy and the University of Exeter. (Fall 2011, Galway, Ireland)
  • Creative Nonfiction chosen as “Notable Essay of 2007” by Best American Essays Series.