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Kristina Baumli

Kristina Morris Baumli is a lecturer in American Literature and Cinema Studies. She is currently completing her dissertation, entitled “Repossessing Uncle Tom: The Religious Form and Content of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the works of W. E. B. Du Bois, Thomas Dixon, and Robert Penn Warren.” In this project, she analyzes the ways in which political novels about race during the Jim Crow era were informed by the religious issues raised by Stowe’s influential text. Kristina is interested in identity studies, particularly critical race studies; novels of the 20th century; and the intersection of race, religion, and politics in American film. She looks forward to working on new projects including a reading of Theodore Roosevelt’s histories of the American West and their translation into film, a study of the crossroads of the Social Gospel and Fundamentalism in the Progressive Era, and a cinematic history of the origins of American fascism. Kristina enjoyed the intellectual stimulus and mentoring she received as a Research Fellow with the Penn Humanities Program. Invited two years in a row to be an honors examiner in the contemporary novel at Swarthmore, Kristina has been recognized with several awards for her outstanding teaching, especially her service-learning projects that earned her a national PAGE fellowship in the Imagining America Program. Her archival work on the Civil Rights movement has also been well received including several panels Kristina organized at the MLA, and the “Public Intellectuals and the Nation State” conference at William Jefferson Clinton Center in Dublin, Ireland, as well as an interview with National Public Radio.

 Courses Taught
Film History (Film 101/English 94)
Making Whiteness: Critical Race Topics in Film (English 294/Film 202/Africana Studies 204)
Modern America (English 64) (Spring 2006)
Contemporary American Literature  (English 74/Africana Studies 85) (Fall 2005)
Collaborative Writing Seminar (year-long course for upper division students): The American Experience in Vietnam on Film (College 009) (2004-5 academic year)
Topics in the 20th Century Novel: The Postmodern Picaresque (English 265) (Summer 2005)
Literature and Society: The Postmodern Picaresque (English 93/Film Studies 93) (Summer 2004)
Pre-Freshman Program: Encountering the City (Summer 2003)
Creative Writing (Summer 2001)
Writing About Literature: The Postmodern Picaresque (Summer 2002)
Writing About Film: The Western (Fall 1999, Spring 2000, Fall 2003, Spring 2004)
Writing About Film: Discovering the Rock and Roll Sublime (Fall 2002, Spring 2003, Summer 2005, Fall 2005, Spring 2006)
Writing About Film: Visions and Revisions of the American South (Fall 1996, Spring 1997)
Writing About Film: Contemporary Issues in Film (Spring 1996)
Writing About Literature: Literature in Transformation (Fall 1995)

Courses Taught

spring 2011

summer 2010

fall 2007

ENGL 091.900 Film History  

summer 2007

ENGL 091.900 Film History  

summer 2006

ENGL 292.920 Whiteness in American Film  

spring 2006

ENGL 064.601 Modern American Literature  

fall 2005

summer 2005

summer 2004

ENGL 093.920 Literature and Society