Jessica Blaustein

Ph.D. Candidate, Literature

Jessica Blaustein describes her hometown, Racine, Wisconsin, as “a Midwestern version of Durham without the Duke.” Growing up, she says, “advanced graduate-level work in the humanities was just not in the realm of everyday possibilities. I always wanted to be an artist. Truthfully, until I took my first upper-level English seminar as a wide-eyed undergraduate, I didn’t know what an academic was. I realized, while taking that seminar, that the literature classroom could be a way into thinking about a zillion different things in critical and creative ways that could never be imagined in other places. While I do not come from an academic family, I have been encouraged to follow my heart, as it were, however impractical the course may seem and however tragic the state of the job market.”

At her undergraduate institution, Washington University, Jessica started out as an architecture major, enriching herself with any literature classes she could fit in, until she switched majors at the end of her third year, one class shy of finishing her architecture major. She’s integrated architectural theory into her current scholarly life, however, and describes her teaching and research interests as falling “pretty firmly within an American studies framework: nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, architecture, urbanism, and material culture. Within this broad range of materials, I am interested in the relationship between built and imagined landscapes and social identity. I also continue to study the intersections between literary, architectural and feminist theories, and I am interested in critical pedagogies.” In terms of her dissertation, this translates into “an effort to rethink the privatizing model of domesticity that frames early twentieth century American individualism,” Jessica explains. “Rather than dismiss the concept of privacy altogether, I propose an alternative theory of privacy, developing a language through which to understand a range of dwelling practices that do not fit the suburban models of dwelling that were fast consolidating in the 1910s and 1920s.”

Duke “was the only place I wanted to be,” Jessica says, because the Literature Program’s “embrace of critical and practical interdisciplinarity” would allow her to combine her passions—which, under the tutelage of Professor Kathy Rudy, came to include Women’s Studies (she earned a certificate and is a Women’s Studies Scholar). She arrived at her dissertation topic “after publishing an essay that brings architectural theory and design to bear on feminist theories of the body and subjectivity,” which led her to begin “thinking more closely about the dense significances of home and its various relationships to identity. While teaching a freshman seminar on late nineteenth and early twentieth century American fiction and architecture, I was struck by the tensions and confusions around dwelling spaces. I began to focus my interdisciplinary work more specifi- cally on the political and cultural and sexual tensions surrounding the American household and the family in the 1920’s, a time when suburban ideals were substantially rearranging diverse landscapes of work, play, and intimacy.”

While at Duke, Jessica grew attached to Durham and what she calls “the good parts of Southern culture—front porches, magnolia trees, and Southerners’ admirably loose relationship to time. Like many students in the Humanities, I’ve had my bouts with existential and financial despair, but I’ve had an overall positive experience as a graduate student at Duke. I’ve had the great fortune of working with supportive professors who have encouraged me to stick through it in the tougher times, and I’ve developed lifelong friendships.”

Professor Janice Radway is Jessica’s dissertation advisor, and Professor Robyn Wiegman, director of the Women’s Studies Program, is also on her committee. In addition, she works with Annabel Wharton, in the art history department, Christopher Newfield, a professor at UC-Santa Barbara, and an art history professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, Carol Mavor. Jessica cites Professors Toril Moi and Barbara Herrnstein-Smith as other Duke influences in her academic development.

Jessica, a recipient of the Lee-Ewing Research Fellowship from the Women’s Studies Program, in addition to several other grants and fellowships, also received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2001-2002. Before she began teaching, Jessica says, she feared “even the tiniest spotlight,” and was concerned that her shyness would “get the better of “ her. However, she enjoys teaching immensely, and found that when she’s in the classroom, “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I love interacting with students.” When enumerating exactly what she likes most about teaching, Jessica cites “the way that the classroom can exist somewhere apart from, or at the very least pause, everyday routines—it’s where the imagination can thrive amidst unexpected, unplanned meetings of minds or eruptions of ideas.” Her least favorite aspect of teaching is one that every teacher has experienced at some point: “Those moments when I can’t reach my students. Blank faces are so much worse than actively confused or even angry faces. These are painful gaps, but usually I have something to learn from them.”

Jessica comments that she “never understood why courses in teaching and pedagogy are not structured into the curriculum —as if Ph.D.’s just naturally know how to teach.” (Although she notes that since she’s left, “students in Literature, in conjunction with the English Department, have taken it upon themselves to organize workshops in pedagogy, and some professors make time to help out.”) “Before I started teaching my first course (University Writing Course—which I confess I enjoyed every time I taught it),” she continues, “I read as much as I could about composition and critical pedagogy, and I structured one of my research papers around it. Grad students can visit other people’s courses, gather tons of syllabi, and not be afraid to experiment with different teaching styles and methods. When grad students are overworked with their own classes, exams, dissertation work—and especially in the latter years, have to teach too many courses a semester to stay financially afloat—it’s essential to share resources.

“Keep an open mind and never typecast your students, no matter how perfectly they seem to fit into some slot,” Jessica advises. “If you, however subconsciously, consider your students to be narrow-minded, they’re more apt to take that shape. Assume from the beginning that your students are eager to throw around new ideas and explore alternative ways of thinking about this, that, or the other thing—and they’re very likely to take you up on the offer.”

Robyn Wiegman

Director, Women’s Studies Program

Jessica’s teaching, as judged by students and both graduate and faculty colleagues, is characterized by a flexible and open style. Her classroom is a work space for students to think, react, and produce both incisive critical analysis and practical reflection. She has an ability to move beyond the presentation of material and discussion that undoes our more typical distinction between lecture and seminar. In her classes, students are asked not simply to consume information but to engage with material in ways that require analysis, synthesis, and critique.

(This profile originally appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of The GRIND.)