Patricia Roylance

Patricia Roylance received her B.A. from Harvard University in 1998, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2005. Her teaching and research interests include early Americas literature and culture; nationalism, transnationalism and comparative colonialisms; temporality and history; and print culture and the history of the book. Her book manuscript, Eclipse of Empires: World History in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Culture, examines anxious U.S. attitudes toward the failed empires of Italy, Peru, Spain, the Netherlands and Native America. It is currently under consideration at Duke University Press. Works in progress include a piece on Nathaniel Hawthorne's history-writing and the multiple temporalities of print culture; a piece on the importance of perspective in Emma Willard's world history works; a piece on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy; and a piece comparing Washington Irving's “Rip Van Winkle” with Wolfgang Becker's 2003 film Good Bye Lenin!

Areas of Supervision: I can supervise graduate projects dealing with early American literature and culture, American literature and culture more generally, transnationalism and globalization, imperialism, and the history of the book.