About
I am a recognized, transformative teacher/scholar in equity-minded higher education operations, including postsecondary teaching experience at the community college, college, university, and R1 university levels, management of federal TRIO Student Support Services programs for low-income and underserved students, academic administration, federal discretionary grants’ reviews, faculty/staff supervision and training, program assessment, budget management, and editorial expertise. To date, I have published six articles in peer-reviewed journals and one book chapter.
I earned my Ph.D. in English Literature at SUNY Stony Brook University in New York (5/18). I have an M.A. in Aesthetics and a B.A. in Philosophy, and two French language certificates from the Sorbonne. My research areas include: nineteenth-century environmental literary criticism, ecocinema studies, environmental humanities, and Dickens and Eliot Studies.
I recently wrote the “Foreword” for The Ecophobia Hypothesis (Routledge 2018). My nineteenth-century scholarship has been published in Adaptation, Dickens Studies Annual, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, and Kritika Kultura. I have published critical reviews in The Journal of Ecocriticism, ISLE, and the Journal of International Comparative Literature. My co-authored article “The Climate of Ecocinema” appears in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.
I am a recipient of the Dean’s Faculty Travel Award, College of Arts & Sciences, NYIT (2022) and the NYIT Community of Practice Award “Amplify Your Teaching: Small Changes…Big Impact (2022-23).” I won the 2017 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Second Place Student Writing Award. I have volunteered as an Asst. Editor and Copy Editor at the Cambridge journal Victorian Literature and Culture. I was the principal investigator for the Stony Brook FAHSS funded-project “Documenting Climate Change.” My recent teaching experience includes courses such as: Foundations of College Composition, Writing for the Technical Professions, Modern Drama, Nature in the Nineteenth Century, Ecopoetics, and The Modern Victorian Environment. I have recently developed two graduate courses, “The Climate of Ecocinema,” and “The Cultural Ecology of Climate Change.” I am also an Open SUNY fellow in the Center for Excellence in Online Teaching. During the 2018/19 academic year, I was in residence at the Wertheim Room of the New York Public Library.
I have presented in North America, Europe, and China at MLA, NAVSA, ASLE, the International James Joyce Symposium, the Modernist Studies Association, NeMLA, M/MLA, INCS, Victorian Poetry, the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, and the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI). I recently gave the keynote lecture at the annual Friends of Dickens NY. My dissertation, “The Sustainable Victorians?” examines the spectrum of sustainability in novels, poems, and prose.
I have been an invited speaker at the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) Annual Meeting in Hong Kong, China, at the Humanities NY Environmental Stewardship Seminar, the Friends of Dickens NY, and the CUNY Victorian Seminar. Education
- Ph.D. English, SUNY Stony Brook University, 5/18
- Certificat, Cours de langue francaise, Sorbonne
- Certificat, Cours de langue et civilisation, Sorbonne
- M.A. Interdiscplinary Studies in Aesthetics, Long Island University
- B.A. Philosophy, Eastern Illinois University
Work Shared in CORE
Articles
Book chapters
Other Publications
- “Foreword.” The Ecophobia Hypothesis by Simon C. Estok, Routledge Studies in World Literature and the Environment, 2018.
- “The Climate of Ecocinema” (co-authored with E. Ann Kaplan), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, August 2017. http://communication.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore- 9780190228613-e-121.
- “Bustin’ Bonaparte: A Post-Apartheid Adaptation of Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm.” Adaptation 2016; doi: 10.1093/adaptation/apw023.
- Adamson, Joni, and Ruffin, Kimberly, eds. American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Citizenship: Thinking and Acting in the Local and Global Commons, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2016; doi: 10.1093/isle/isw003.
- Otto, Eric C. Green Speculations: Science Fiction and Transformative Environmentalism. The Journal of Ecocriticism. 5.2 (July 2012): 1-3. http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/joe/article/view/523/459.
Projects
- Chair, The Long Island Regional Council, AAUP, New York State Conference
- Co-principal Investigator for “Witnessing Climate Change: A Documentation Project”. This interdisciplinary Humanities for the Environment FAHSS-funded project, is in partnership with Departments of English, Sustainability, Humanities Institute, Southampton Campus, and Community Collaborators.
- Member, Humanities for the Environment Executive Committee. As a member of the executive committee Sophie has developed lecture series such as “The Nature of Ecocentrism” and “Climate Justice” with speakers including Greta Gaard, Michael Klare, Jesse Oak Taylor, and Tonya Lewis.
Upcoming Talks and Conferences
2018/19
- “Presenter,” CUNY Victorian Seminar, Fall 2018.
- “Presenter, George Eliot’s Planetarity,” North American Studies Association, Fall 2018.
- “Presenter, Cultural Extinction,” MLA19, Winter 2019
- Keynote,” Friends of Dickens New York, January 2018.
2017
- Presenter, “The Legal Ecology of Sustainable Citizenship,” Legal Ecologies roundtable, MLA 18
- Presenter, “Dickens and Government Resistance: The Battle to Save Epping Forest,” Dickens and Resistance panel, MLA 18 2017
- Presenter, “Platonic Hard Times,” Why are We Here? Philosophical/Political Dickens panel, 22nd Annual Dickens Symposium