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Dr. Stacey Dearing received her Ph.D. in early American literature from Purdue University in 2018; in addition, she has an M.A. in American literature from Auburn University (2012) and a B.A. in history and English from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI (2009). Her research largely focuses on the medical humanities and material culture; she is particularly interested in how writing enables agency in narratives of illness, injury, and disability. She also enjoys teaching business writing, writing in the health and human sciences, and dystopian literature. Prior to arriving at Siena, she served as an instructor at Washtenaw Community College, with the Warrior-Scholar Project, and with the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project. In the summer of 2019, she was the Erikson Scholar in Residence at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA.

Degree Program University
Ph.D. American Literature Purdue University
M.A. American Literature Auburn University
B.A. History, English Aquinas College

My Professional Experience

Articles & Book Reviews

  • Remembering Dorothy May Bradford's Death and Reframing 'Depression' in Colonial New England
    Early American Literature
    2020
  • On Physical and Spiritual Recovery: Reconsidering the Role of Patients in Early American Restitution Narratives.
    Journal of Medical Humanities
    2019
  • "Remember Me: Discursive Needlework and the Sewing Sampler of Patty Bartlett Sessions."
    Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
    2018

Awards & Distinctions

  • In November 2022, my Essay "Remembering Dorothy May Bradford's Death and Reframing 'Depression' in Colonial New England" received the 2021 Richard Beale Davis prize for the best essay published in Early American Literature in 2021 (all issues in Volume 56). Early American Literature is the official journal of the Society of Early Americanists and the Modern Language Association (MLA) Division of American Literature to 1830.  


    Category: Research
    MLA Forum on Early America, Early American Literature, 2022
  • I received for the Siena College School of Liberal Arts Contingent Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching for the 2020-2021 Academic year. For this award, faculty must have taught at Siena for at least 3 years, and must be nominated by a colleague for consideration. 
    Category: Teaching
    Siena College School of Liberal Arts, 2022
  •  I was nominated for the Siena College School of Liberal Arts Contingent Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching for the 2020-2021 Academic year. For this award, faculty must have taught at Siena for at least 3 years, and must be nominated by a colleague for consideration. 
    Category: Teaching
    Siena College School of Liberal Arts, 2021
  • "Viral Truth or Fake News?: Developing Information Literacy by Fact Checking Social Media." Part of WRIT 390/ENGL384 Rhetoric and Social Media (Spring 2020). Received an information literacy grant to develop a fact-checking unit for upper-level writing courses.

    Category: Teaching
    Siena College Standish Library, 2020
  • Selected for the Erikson Scholar in Residence position at the Austen Riggs Center, Summer 2019

    Category: Research
    The Erikson Institute for Education and Research at the Austen Riggs Center, 2019
  • October 2018 Society of Early Americanists' Junior Scholar of the Month
    •   https://www.societyofearlyamericanists.org/whats-new-announcements/sea-junior-scholar-of-the-month-for-october-stacey-dearing

    Category: Teaching-Research-Service
    Society of Early Americanists, 2018

Books & Book Chapters

  • Psychoanalytic Intersections: A Collection of Papers by Visiting Scholars of the Austen Riggs Center Erikson Institute for Education and Research (2000-2020)
    Routledge
    2023
  • Scripting the Past in the Present: Early America and Contemporary Culture

    2023
  • The Many Deaths of Dorothy May Bradford: Mental Health, Suicide, and American Myth Making

    2023

Presentations

  • Avoiding Sordid Speculation: Dorothy May Bradford's Death and Ethical Conversations about Suicide in Early American Literary History
    2023
    Society of Early Americanists, College Park, Maryland
  • Contingent, but No Longer Junior? Navigating my Role in Higher Ed
    2023
    Society of Early Americanists, College Park, Maryland
  • 'Goodwives and Gentle Mothers': Female Essentialism in Film & TV Adaptations of the Mayflower
    2022
    Capital District Feminist Studies Conference, Loudonville, New York
  • 10 Tiny Tweaks to Make your Classroom more Inclusive
    2022
    Engage for Change: Engaging Diverse Communities, Loudonville, New York
  • Dorothy May Bradford's Death and Reconceiving 'Realness'
    2021
    Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Exemplary Americans: the Innovative Politics of Drag and American Values on RuPaul's Drag Race
    2021
    Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia (zoom), Pennsylvania
  • Memories of Pain: Remembering Disease, Disability, and Injury in Experience Mayhew's Indian Converts
    2021
    Society of Early Americanists, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Portable Strategies for the Antiracist Classroom
    2021
    Engage for Change: Engaging Diverse Communities, Loudonville, New York
  • Memories of Pain: Remembering Disease, Disability, and Injury in Experience Mayhew's Indian Converts
    2020
    Society of Early Americanists' Special Topics Conference, Plymouth, United Kingdom
  • Rethinking Patient Agency in Puritan Illness Narratives
    2020
    Alden March Bioethics Institute, Albany Medical College, Albany, New York
  • 'A Melancholy-Spectacle': Mental Health in Colonial America
    2019
    Erikson Institute for Education and Learning, Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
  • 'Beholding 'The Wilderness Shores': Remembering Dorothy May Bradford's Death and Reframing 'Depression' In Colonial New England
    2019
    Erikson Institute for Education and Learning, Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
  • First-Generation College Student to PhD.
    2019
    Siena College, Loudonville, New York
  • Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Thoughts on The Medical Imagination
    2019
    Society of Early Americanists, Eugene, Oregon
  • Signing Grace: Disability, Accommodation, and Political Enfranchisement in Increase Mather's An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences
    2018
    Society of Early Americanists' Special Topics Conference, St. Louis, Missouri
  • Cotton Mather and Patient Agency: Medical Providentialism and the Active Role of Puritan Patients in Eighteenth-Century New England
    2017
    American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Theorizing Patient Agency through Medical Providentialism in Cotton Mather's The Angel of Bethesda
    2017
    Society of Early Americanists, Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • 'Of things invisible to mortal sight': Witnessing in Samson Agonistes
    2015
    The Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
  • Reflecting Upon Folly: Disease and Communitism in the Journal of Joseph Johnson
    2015
    Native American & Indigenous Studies Association, DC, District of Columbia
  • Engaging in Revolution: Reimagining Race, Identity & Historiography in Assassin's Creed III
    2013
    Society of Early Americanists, Savannah, Georgia
  • Remember Me: Discursive Needlework and the Sewing Sampler of Patty Bartlett Sessions
    2012
    South-East American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Decatur, Georgia
  • 'Tis Well Tis No Worse -- He Has I am Pretty Sure Not Given it Me': Hester Thrale and Female Venereal Disease in Eighteenth Century England
    2011
    South-East American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Winston-Salem, North Carolina