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Travis Chi Wing Lau

University of California, Los Angeles; B.A. English, Classical Civilization (2012); summa cum laude

2018 Ph.D. Graduate
Dissertation Advisor(s): Michael Gamer, Lance Wahlert
"Prophylactic Fictions: Immunity and Biosecurity "

Assistant Professor of English, Kenyon College

Travis recently completed his Ph.D. at University of Pennsylvania Department of English and will be a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 2018. His research interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature, the history and theory of the novel, the history of medicine, disability studies, body studies, and gender and sexuality studies. His dissertation, Prophylactic Fictions: Immunity and Biosecurity, traces the British literary and cultural history of immunity and vaccination in relation to conceptions of national health and the rise of the security state. His academic writing has been published in Journal of Homosexuality, Romantic Circles, English Language Notes, Digital Defoe, and Disability Studies Quarterly. His creative writing has appeared in The Deaf Poets Society, Wordgathering, Assaracus, Rogue Agent, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology (Handtype Press, 2015).

Travis has served as the Graduate English Association's Treasurer and Prospectives Visit Coordinator. He has also served as organizer for Restoration-Victorian Reading Group.  

Courses Taught

fall 2018

ENGL 268.301 Literature and Science canceled  

fall 2017

ENGL 105.601 Disability Narratives  
ENGL 267.601 Contagion  

spring 2016

fall 2013