Dr. Taylor Johnston-Levy
CV
Education
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev – Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics| 2021-22
Postdoctoral fellowship in American Literature & Culture
Advisor: Barbara Hochman
Areas of Research: American literature & culture (19th century-present); African American fiction; critical race theory; literary realism (19th century-present)
Tel Aviv University – Center for the Study of the United States in Partnership with the
Fulbright Program| 2019-20
Postdoctoral fellowship in American Studies
Advisor: Milette Shamir
University of California, Berkeley – Departments of Comparative Literature & English
Ph.D. in Comparative Literature| August 2019
Dissertation: Postmodern Realism and That Class Which Is Not One
Committee: Dorothy Hale (advisor), Colleen Lye, Barbara Spackman, Dora Zhang
Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory
M.A. in English, Creative Writing emphasis| May 2018
Thesis: Thoughts Are Free (short story collection)
Advisor: Vikram Chandra
Middlebury College – English & American Literatures and Italian Studies
B.A., with highest honors (2007) | M.A. (2010)
Awards and Fellowships
Critical Theory Research Grant – Program in Critical Theory, UC Berkeley | 2019
Awarded to three candidates in Designated Emphasis program annually
Dissertation Completion Fellowship – Graduate Division, UC Berkeley | 2017-18
Funding to support dissertation research
Pre-Dissertation Research Grant – Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley | 2016
Funding for archival research at the Library of Congress
Sidney and Margaret Ancker Fellowship – Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley | 2012-13
Funding to support first year of graduate study
Pedagogy & Curriculum Design
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award – UC Berkeley | 2016-17
Recognized for exceptional pedagogical practice by GSI Teaching & Resource Center
Program Assessment Fellowship – Center for Teaching & Learning, UC Berkeley| 2017
Funding for semester-long training in program assessment and work facilitating the Department of Near Eastern Studies’ review and curriculum redesign
Daniel E. Koshland Jr. Course Development Grant – UC Berkeley | 2017, 2018
Funding for students’ development and production of class magazine
Daniel E. Koshland Jr. Professional Self-Development Grant – UC Berkeley | 2017, 2018
Funding to attend Conference on College Composition & Communication (2017, 2018) and the American Studies Association’s Annual Meeting on “Pedagogies of Dissent” (2017)
“Art of Writing” Koshland Fellowship – Townsend Center, UC Berkeley | 2016
Funding to support summer training in composition pedagogy with Joe Harris (Professor of English, University of Delaware) and workshops with other composition scholars
Mellon-funded Grant – Cal Performances, UC Berkeley, in support of “Reading Performance” and
“The Art in Artifice” (Reading & Composition courses) | 2014, 2015
Funding for students to attend live theater, dance, and readings; workshops and discussions with professional performing artists
Creative Writing
Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Student Scholarship| 2006
Funding to support attendance at fiction workshop with Helen Schulman
Vermont Studio Center Writing Residency| 2006
Month-long summer fiction writing residency and workshop
Selected Talks & Conference Papers
Invited Talks
“White Affect in African American Literature”| Spring 2021
Tel Aviv University, School of Cultural Studies
“Antiracism and the Economy of White Joy” | Spring 2021
University of Southern Denmark, Department for the Study of Culture
“U.S. Pandemic Fiction and the Politics of Infection” | Fall 2020
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics
Conference Papers
“20th-Century Pandemic Fiction, 21st-Century Anti-mask-ism” | Spring 2021
American Comparative Literature Association
“Reflections on North and South”
Study of English Literatures in Israel, Be’er Sheva| Spring 2020
“Whiteness and Literary Studies”
American Studies Association, Honolulu| Fall 2019
“‘With her little finger sticking out’: Whiteness, Class, and the Ethnographic Detail
in Alice Walker” | Summer 2019
Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College
“(Neo)Neorealist Film and White Lower-Middle-Class Affect”
American Comparative Literature Association, Georgetown | Spring 2019
“‘Perhaps only from watching gulls fly’: Critical Protestantism and the White Lower Middle Class in
Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping” | Spring 2018
American Literature Association, San Francisco
“Dialectic of Boredom: the Twenty-First-Century Entertainment Imperative” | Spring 2018
American Comparative Literature Association, Los Angeles
“‘Canvass and mere tones’: Knausgaard’s History of Art in
A Death in the Family” | Summer 2017
American Comparative Literature Association, Utrecht
“The Evacuation of Commodified Space in Carver’s ‘Cathedral’” | Spring 2014
American Literature Association, Boston
Roundtables & Faculty Seminar Presentations
“Pedagogy in a State of Emergency” | Winter 2022
Modern Language Association, Washington D.C.
“White Affect in Richard Wright’s Native Son” | Spring 2021
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of English
“White Racialization and Trumpism”| Fall 2020
Tel Aviv University, Center for the Study of the U.S.
“Literature and the Arts After Corona”| Spring 2020
Tel Aviv University, Center for the Study of the U.S.
“Particular Invisibility: Auto-Ethnographic Deconstructions of Whiteness”| Spring 2020
Tel Aviv University, Center for the Study of the U.S.
Courses
Selected Courses
Department of English Literature & Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University
Teaching Fellow – “Academic Writing on American Minimalism” (English 106) | Fall 2021
Introduction to U.S. minimalist fiction of the 1970s and 80s and its contemporary afterlife.
Department of English & American Studies, Tel Aviv University
Teaching Fellow – “Whiteness and the Study of U.S. Literature” (Grad Seminar) | Spring 2021
Representations of whiteness in 20th- and 21st-century American literature and film, in dialogue with critical race theory and the history of U.S. race relations
Department of English, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Teaching Fellow – “Selected Shakespeare Plays” (Core Course) | Spring 2021
Survey with attention to aspects of Shakespeare that anticipate 20th-century social theory
Department of English, UC Berkeley
Lead Instructor – “Black on White/White on White” (Reading & Composition) | Summer 2018
Critiques of whiteness by both ethnic-minority and white scholars in critical race theory and pedagogy, sociology, history, and American literature and film; two sections taught; part of the Summer Bridge Program for first-year students from under-resourced high schools
Department of Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley
Lead Instructor – “Black on White/White on White” (Reading & Composition) | Spring 2019
(see description above)
Lead Instructor – “Consumed and Consuming: Bodies in Narrative Representations of
Poverty” (Reading & Composition) | Spring 2017
Depictions of suffering in African American and Chinese naturalism, film, documentary journalism, and critical theory
Lead Instructor – “Reading and Writing Other People” (Reading & Composition) | Fall 2016
Ethics of alterity in African American, Italian, and Chinese naturalism and critical theory
Lead Instructor – “The Art in Artifice” (Reading & Composition) | Fall 2015
Meta-artistic gesture in British drama, Italian fiction, American poetry, and critical theory; live theater, dance, and readings; included student collaborations with professional performing artists; Mellon-funded
Lead Instructor – “Literature in the Age of Ritalin” (Reading & Composition) | Spring 2015
Boredom and distraction in British, American, Latin American, and Israeli fiction; live performance; critical theory
Lead Instructor – “Reading Performance” (Reading & Composition) | Fall 2014
Narrative form and adaptations of literature in live theater, dance, and readings; Russian fiction; Italian drama; Shakespeare; included student collaboration with professional performing artists and StoryCorps; Mellon-funded
Publications
Publications
Peer-reviewed Articles
“Whiteness and the Affective Economy of Happy Antiracism in Native Son and Meridian,”
forthcoming in Twentieth-Century Literature (Duke UP)
“‘Perhaps only from watching gulls fly’: Critical Protestantism and the White Lower Middle Class in
Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping,” Arizona Quarterly, 75.2, Summer 2019 (Duke UP)
“The Corpse as Novelistic Form: Knausgaard’s Deconstruction of Proustian Memory,” Critique:
Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 59.3, Winter 2017 (Taylor & Francis)
“‘Inside anything’: the Evacuation of Commodified Space in Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral,’” The
Raymond Carver Review 5/6, Spring 2017 (Kent State)
Other Academic Publications
Review of Secular Translations: Nation-State, Modern Self, and Calculative Reason, by Talal Asad, Poetics
Today, 41.3, Fall 2020 (Duke UP)
Critical introductions to Alice Walker, Marilynne Robinson, and Raymond Carver, Twentieth-
Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context, ABC-CLIO, June 2021.
Contributed entries to multi-volume book on American literature, 20th century to present, with emphasis on historical, cultural, and political context.
Media
Last Updated Date : 13/08/2023
