Brenda Machosky is Professor of English and Humanities at the University of Hawai`i West O`ahu, and respectfully acknowledges the kānaka maoli as the rightful owners of the unceded ‘aina (land) on which she lives and works. She teaches courses in world literature, postcolonial literature and theory, Indigenous women writers of the Pacific, medieval and early modern English literature, and literary theory. She is spending her partial-year 2022 sabbatical in Western Australia and in the Northern Territories, at University of Western Australia and Charles Darwin University, enhancing her research by meeting with colleagues, giving talks and guest lectures, and benefitting from library resources not easily accessible at home. She currently researches and writes on Indigenous literatures of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand as well as her lifelong study of allegory, and she is developing a book that brings these two interests together.
Published books include Structures of Appearing: Allegory and the Work of Literature (Fordham 2013) and the edited volume, Thinking Allegory Otherwise (Stanford 2010). Recently published articles include "Why Australia? Inquiries and possibilities in the United States” in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing 58.2 (2022); “Alexis Wright’s Storytelling Novel and its ‘particular kind of knowledge’” in Ellipsis: Alexis Wright, ed. Estelle Castro-Koshy and Temiti LeHartel (2021); and “Allegory and the Work of Dreaming/Law/Lore” in Allegory Studies: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Vladimir Brjlak (Routledge 2021). She is an invited contributor to the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Allegory, edited by David Parry.
Professor Machosky is editor of Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australia/New Zealand Studies and president of the American Association for Australasian Literary Studies. She is also active in national and international scholarly organizations, including the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, the Modern Language Association, and the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. She presents regularly at international conferences.
Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison
MA in English, San Francisco State University
BA in English, cum laude, SUNY Stony Brook
Professor, University of Hawai`i West O`ahu, English and Humanities, 2007-present. Promoted to Associate Professor, August 2011; awarded tenure, July 2012; promoted to Professor, August 2016.
Coordinator, Office of Professional Development and Academic Support (OPDAS), formerly Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) 2008-19; Co-Coordinator, OPDAS, 2019-20.
University Immersion Program, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. July 2018.
Lecturer, Stanford University, 2006-7, Program in Writing and Rhetoric and Introduction to the Humanities
Lecturer, San Francisco State University, Department of Humanities, Spring 2007
Visiting Assistant Professor, Cornell University, Department of English, 2005-2006
Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University, 2002-2005, Introduction to the Humanities – Lecturer & Course Coordinator;
Lecturer, Continuing Studies, Stanford University, Lecturer, 2003-2006
ENG200 & 209: Composition II (focus on research and various writing modes)
ENG240: Intro to Literary Studies (Theory & Criticism) (prev. ENG300)
ENG253: World Literature I (to 1700)
ENG257D: World Literature in English
ENG260: British Literature I (to 1700)
HUM300: Humanities [Interdisciplinary] Seminar
HUM301: Studies in the Western Tradition
ENG300C: Topics in Theory: Cultural Studies
ENG300D: Topics in Theory: Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
ENG300E: Topics in Theory: Postcolonialism
ENG320A: Topics in World Literature: Magical Realism
ENG 331A: Topics in British Literature Pre-1700: Allegory
ENG362D: Opera and Musical Theatre
ENG362C: Devil on Page, Stage and Screen
ENG380: Multicultural and Postcolonial Literature
ENG402: From Vikings to Pidgin: The History of the English Language
ENG440: Major Author: Spenser
ENG440E: Major Author: Dante (also as ENG496J)
ENG445: Shakespeare (also as ENG496H)
ENG462B: Literature and Oper
ENG462C: Popular Theater (Global and Local)
ENG480: Literature of the Pacific X HPST Focus: Indigenous Women ENG496P: Literature and Business (crosslist with BUSA)
ENG490/491: Senior Project/Practicum Supervision (Independent Study)
BOOKS:
Structures of Appearing: Allegory and the Work of Literature. Fordham University Press (August 2012). An interdisciplinary study that revises the history of allegory through a phenomenological approach. It also takes on the history of aesthetics as an ideology that has long subjugated literature to criteria of judgment that are philosophical rather than literary.
Thinking Allegory Otherwise. Essay collection. Editor. Stanford University Press, 2009. Contributors: Jody Enders, Karen Feldman, Angus Fletcher, Blair Hoxby, Catherine Martin, Stephen Orgel, James Paxson, Maureen Quilligan, Daniel Selcer, Gordon Teskey, Richard Wittman.
Peer Reviewed Articles
“Allegory and Appearance: Phenomenological Approaches to Allegory.” The Oxford. Handbook of Allegory, ed. David Parry. Forthcoming 2023.
“Why Australia? Inquiries and Possibilities in the United States.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, guest editor Jean-François Vernay, 58.1 (February 2022), p.125-138.
“Alexis Wright’s Storytelling Novel and its ‘particular kind of knowledge’.” Ellipsis: Alexis Wright, ed. Estelle Castro-Koshy and Temiti LeHartel, (2021), p.206-224.
“Allegory and the Work of Aboriginal Dreaming/Law/Lore” in Allegory Studies: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Vladimir Brljak (Routledge, 2021), p.190-212.
“Kim Scott’s True Country as Aboriginal Bildungsroman.” A Companion to Kim Scott, ed. Belinda Wheeler (Camden House, 2016), p.25-36.
“The Personification of the Human Subject in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene” in Personification: Embodying Meaning and Emotion, ed. Walter Melion, Bart Ramakers [Series: Intersections, General Ed. K.A.E. Enenkel.] (Brill: Leiden & Boston, 2016), p.121-39.
“Allegories of Knowing and the Desire for Meaning” in Allegory of the Cave Painting, ed. Mihnea Mircan and Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei (Belgium: Mousse, 2015), p.135-49.
“’Girl in a White Dress’: The Voices of Iris Milutinovic” Antipodes, June 2013: 43-48.
“The Fall into Allegory: Trope and Truth in The Pilgrim’s Progress.” SEL: Studies in English Literature, 47.1 (Winter 2007): 179-198.
“Fasting at the Feast of Literature.” Comparative Literature Studies, 42.2 (2005): 288-305.
“A Poetics at the Limit of the Subject: Nancy’s Philosophy of Singular Being in Conrad’s The Secret Sharer.” e-REA: Revue d’études Anglophones 2.2 (Fall 2004), n.p. https://journals.openedition.org/erea/447
“The Face that is Not a Face: The Phenomenology of the Soul in the Allegory of the Psychomachia.” Exemplaria 15.1 (2003): 1-38.
"Waiting for Goethe: Goethe Biographies from Ludwig Geiger to Friedrich Gundolf" with Hope Hague and Marcel Rotter, in Goethe in German-Jewish Culture, ed. Klaus Berghahn and Jost Hermand. New York and London: Camden House, 2001, p.84-103. [50% contribution]
Reviews
“Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, Made to Matter: White Fathers, Stolen Generations” (review) Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australasian Literary Studies 29.2 (2015).
“Country of the Heart: An Indigenous Australian Homeland by Deborah Bird Rose.” Reviews in Australian Studies 7.3 (2013).
“Cambridge Companion to Bunyan” (review). Restoration Studies in English Literary Culture: 1660-1700 35.2 (Fall 2011).
Plenary Speaker: Warburg Institute of the University of London, England, Rethinking Allegory Conference: “Why We Need to Rethink Allegory.” 30 October 2015.
Judge, Hawai`i History Day, Hawaii Council for the Humanities, 2017.
Resident Scholar
National Centre for Cultural Competence, University of Sydney (March 2017)
Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, Australia, Visiting Scholar (July 2015)
Program in Comparative Literature, University of Texas Austin, Visiting Faculty (April 2015).
Visiting Scholar: Edward A. Clark Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at the University of Texas-Austin. (April 2015). Project: Revisiting and Revising “White Australia” and Aboriginal “Protection” Policies.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas Austin (June 2011). Project: The "Absent Presence" of Aboriginal Voices in Post-Contact Literature of Australia
University of Hawai`i Humanities Research Council Summer Fellowship Additional support for archival research at the Harry Ransom Center (June 2011).
Judge. American Comparative Literature Association Master’s Prize, 2010-11.
National Endowment for the Humanities – Summer Seminar Fellowship, Paris 2003: “Surveying Paris: Urban Space and Urban Culture in the Early Modern City” under the direction of Professor Karen Newman (Brown University).
Library of Congress: Teaching with Primary Sources grant, Principal Investigator, with Prof. David Kupferman. July 2015-July 2016. [$20,000]
Student Equity Excellence and Diversity (SEED) grant, with Eric Chock. Fall 2013. Support of guest lectures and workshops with local writers and dramatists at UHWO. [$1000]
: Allegory and Phenomenology: Structures of Appearance in Poetry, Prose, and Philosophy. University of Wisconsin 2002.
Allegory, Aesthetics, Philosophy and Literature; Indigenous literatures of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand; Comparative Literature; Philology; Literary Theory; Humanism; Western Tradition
American Association for Australasian Literary Studies (AAALS); Board Member, 2015-present; Vice-President 2016-20; President 2020-24
Council of Editors of Learning Journals (CELJ)
Modern Language Association (MLA)
American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA)
Association for Study of Australian Literature (ASAL)
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA)
Budget and Resources Committee (Faculty Senate standing committee), Chair, Spring 2023, 2019-21, 2015-17. Member, 2021-23.
Office of Professional Development and Academic Support, Founder (2008) and Coordinator (2008-2019) Co-Coordinator 2019-20. (Previously known as Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence).
UH West O`ahu Faculty Senate, Humanities Division Representative: 2007-09, 2010-12, 2014-16, 2020-22.
Search Committees for Creative Media and English positions, various, 2010-19
UHWO Distinguished Visiting Scholars Committee, Chair, 2013-2017.
Public lectures for the Hawai`i Shakespeare Festival (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016 seasons).
University Tenure and Promotion Review Committee, Chair, member, various.
Division Promotional Committee.
UHWO Communications Committee, Special Committee, Spring 2013 – Fall 2016.
Study Abroad - short term. Organized, coordinated and chaperoned Humanities Club trips to Europe (France, Greece, Italy). (Note: I initiated this program at UH West O`ahu.)
First-year Experience at UH West O`ahu. Workshop presentations and student outreach.
Service on the following standing committees at University of Hawai`i West O`ahu (at least one semester):
Curriculum, Budget and Resources, Academic Affairs, Educational Effectiveness, Writing.