Department ofEnglish

Post-1945 American Literature

Contemporary Canadian Literature

Gender and Queer Studies

Comparative Ethnic Studies

Cultural Memory Studies

PhD in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 2012

MA in Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College, 2004

BA in Comparative Literature, Smith College, 2001

Jenny James was born and raised in Michigan, the home of the Great Lakes and the Michigan Wolverines. Before coming to PLU, she lived in Boston, Hanover, NH and New York City. Jenny teaches American literature from 1860 to the present, with a special emphasis on the representation of race, gender and sexuality in fiction written after 1945.  She also teaches a Writing 101 course on memoir and theories of the self for the First Year Experience Program. Her research traces the development of narratives of affiliation in the post-1960 North American novel. In their depiction of alternative forms of loving friendship, these narratives emerged as a creative force to negotiate changing conceptions of social difference during the era