ALICIA L. KERFOOT
Associate Professor
Department of English
SUNY Brockport
214 Liberal Arts Building
Brockport, NY
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
Associate Professor, Department of English, The College at Brockport: SUNY (2018-)
Assistant Professor, Department of English, The College at Brockport: SUNY (2012-2018)
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Prince Edward Island (2011-2012)
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Waterloo (2010-2011)
Lecturer, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University (2009-2011)
EDUCATION
PhD, English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University (2010)
MA, English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph (2005)
BA, Honours English Literature and Applied Studies Co-operative Program, University of Waterloo (2003)
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Material objects and representations of fashion, costumes and clothing in British literature, 1660-1830; representations of nunneries, monastic ruins, and the domestic sphere in British literature, 1660-1830; the Gothic novel; women’s writing; early modern periodicals.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Student Encyclopedia of African Literature. Co-authored with Douglas Killam. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group (December 2007).
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Life and Work: Frances Burney and the Needle Arts” in Frances Burney and the Arts. Ed. Francesca Saggini. Palgrave Macmillan (2022).
“Stitching the It-Narrative in The History and Adventures of a Lady’s Slippers and Shoes” in Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers. Eds. Serena Dyer and Chloe Wigston Smith. Material Culture of Art and Design Series, Ed. Michael Yonan. Bloomsbury Academic (October, 2020).
“Virtuous Footwear: Pamela’s Shoe Heel and Cinderilla’s ‘Little Glass Slipper.’” Eighteenth-Century Fiction, “Material Fictions” Special Issue 31.2 (2018-2019).
“Catherine Morland’s ‘Plain Black Shoes’: Practical Fashions and Buried Convents in Northanger Abbey.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture. Online, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2018.1454746 (24 April, 2018).
“Literary Representations of Dress and Fashion.” A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Enlightenment. Ed. Peter McNeil. Bloomsbury Academic (2017).
“Prison and Sanctuary: Ann Radcliffe’s Mutable Nunneries.” Under the Veil: Spirituality and Feminism in Post-Reformation Britain and Europe. Ed. Katherine Quinsey. Cambridge Scholars Press (2012).
“Declining Buckles and Movable Shoes in Frances Burney’s Cecilia.” The Burney Journal, Volume 11 (2011, published in fall 2012).
“Replacing the Old Silver Knife: the Convergence of Antislavery Rhetoric and Legal Discourse in Mansfield Park.” Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 31.2 (2008): 275-292.
Book Reviews
“Review: English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity. Eds. Caroline Bowden and James E. Kelly. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013.” Studies in Religion and the Enlightenment 1.1 (fall 2018): 25-27.
“Review of Jane Austen and the Reformation: Remembering the Sacred Landscape by Roger E. Moore (Routledge, 2016).” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 30.2 (2018).
“Review: Women, Work, and Clothes in the Eighteenth-Century Novel by Chloe Wigston Smith (Cambridge UP, 2013).” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture. November (2015): 1-5.
“Review: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers and the Gentleman's Liberation Movement: Independence, War, Masculinity, and the Novel, 1778-1818 by Megan A. Woodworth. Farnham: Ashgate. 2011.” Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 37.4 (2014): 578-9.
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Blue Shoes, ‘Nankin’ Boots, and Lilac Shoe Roses: Material Intertextuality in Sanditon and Camilla” CSECS/NEASECS Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (October 2022).
“Stitching with Burney: Needlework, Material Culture Studies, and The Court Journals and Letters.” The Burney Society (North America) Virtual Zoom Conference (July, 2021).
Panelist, “Fashion and Mobility: Engaging the Eighteenth-Century Archive” at the Canadian Fashion Symposium, Ryerson University (September, 2019).
Panelist, “Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers” (Roundtable), International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland (July, 2019).
“The Embodied Embroidery of Cecilia’s ‘Spoilt’ Screen.” Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Rochester, New York (October 2018).
“Frances Burney’s Embroidered Mourning Piece: The Wanderer and the Materiality of Grief.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Orlando, Florida (March 2018).
“A Pattern for the ‘sewing sisterhood’: Embodied Needlework in Frances Burney’s The Wanderer.” Romantic Life: North American Society for the Study of Romanticism 25th Annual Conference. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (August, 2017).
“The Fabric of Footwear: Needlework, Reproduction, and the Stitched Layers of Narrative in The History and Adventures of a Lady’s Slippers and Shoes.” Fashioning Dress: Sewing and Skill, 1500-1850. Conference and Historical Sewing Skills Workshop. University of Warwick, UK (May, 2017).
“‘Calculations of Probability’: Watches and Watchfulness in Frances Burney’s The Wanderer.” Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (October 2016).
“‘She then broke the lace off short’: Fictions of Fit and Mobility in Emma.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (April, 2016).
“Virtuous Footwear: Pamela’s Shoe Heel and Cinderella’s Little Glass Slipper.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (April, 2016).
“Virtuous Footwear: Pamela’s Shoe Heel and Cinderella’s Little Glass Slipper.” Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC (October 2015).
“‘Fading into a state of decay’: The Leftovers of Dress in Camilla, or, What can Princess Sophia’s Heliotrope Shoes tell us about Camilla’s Lilac Uniform?” The Burney Society of North America Biennial Conference, Montreal, Canada (October 2014).
Chair and Organizer, “Reproducing the Past in the Eighteenth Century” at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia (March 2014).
“Motion, Emotion, and ‘the sympathising Shoe’ in The History and Adventures of a Lady’s Slippers and Shoes.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia (March 2014).
“Nun, Mistress, Saint: Isabella, Rosamond, Eloisa.” Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, University of Western Ontario (October 2013).
“Anne Elliot’s Thick Walking Boots.” Pride and Prejudices: Women’s Writing of the Long Eighteenth Century Conference, Chawton House Library, Hampshire, UK (July 2013)
“The ‘spectatress’ or the ‘party engaged’? Dance and Debt in Frances Burney’s Camilla.” The Burney Society Biennial Conference, New York, New York (October 2012).
“Ann Radcliffe and the Mutable Aesthetics of Female Monasticism." American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, San Antonio, Texas (March 2012).
Chair and Organizer, “Frances Burney and Performativity” (Burney Society Graduate Seminar Roundtable). American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, San Antonio, Texas (March 2012).
“Ann Radcliffe’s Maternal Waxes: Iconography, the Miniature, and Female Monasticism.” Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Hamilton, Ontario (October 2011).
“‘Let firm, well-hammer’d Soles protect thy Feet’: Footwear and the Permeability of the Street in Gay’s Trivia.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia (March 2011).
“Catherine Morland’s ‘Plain Black Shoes’: Practical Femininity and Buried Convents in Northanger Abbey.” Jane Austen Society of North America Annual General Meeting, Portland, Oregon (October 2010).
“Declining Buckles and Movable Shoes in Frances Burney’s Cecilia.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico (March 2010).
“Inherited Follies: Ruinous History in Sophia Lee’s The Recess and at William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon (March 2008).
INVITED TALKS
“Broken Laces and Thick Boots: Fictions of Footwear in Emma and Persuasion” JASNA Central and Western New York, Jane Austen Birthday Luncheon, Rochester NY (December 2016).
“The Era of the ‘Ultra’: Early Twentieth-Century Women's Footwear in the Knapp Museum Collection.” Emily L. Knapp Museum and Library of Local History End of Season Event, Brockport NY (October 2015).
COURSES TAUGHT
The College at Brockport: State University of New York
Honors 112: Introduction to Honors
English 112: College Composition
English 230: British Literature I
English 234: Jane Austen and Popular Culture
English 375: The British Novel I
English 303: Introduction to Literary Analysis
English 313: British Romantic Poetry
English 326: Fashioning the Early English Essay Periodical
English 326: The Eighteenth Century on Stage
English 352: Early British Magazine Culture
English 354: British Literature in the 1790s
English 376: The British Novel II
English 430: The Long Eighteenth Century
English 431: English Romantic Writers
English 472: Objects, Others, and Things in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Capstone Course)
English/Communication 485/585: Professional Writing (Graduate and Undergraduate Course)
English 610: Nuns and Nunneries in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Graduate Course)
English 610: The Religion of Things in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Graduate Course)
SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS
Provost’s Post-Tenure Fellowship, SUNY Brockport (2019-2021)
Roland Fontaine Award for Faculty-Student Engagement, SUNY Brockport (2016-2017)
Nominated for the Academic Advisement Award, SUNY Brockport (2016-2017)
Pre-Tenure Grants Development Award, SUNY Brockport (2017-2018)
Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Leave Program (August-January 2015-16)
Pre-Tenure Grants Development Award, SUNY Brockport (2013-2014)
Chawton House Visiting Fellowship, Chawton House Library (June 2012)
Honourable Mention, Hemlow Prize in Burney Studies, The Burney Society (2010)
Research Travel Grant, Edna Elizabeth Ross Reeves Scholarship, McMaster University (2008)
SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Government of Canada (2007-2009)
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
The College at Brockport: State University of New York
Director of Graduate Studies, English Department (2021-Present)
SEGUE (Graduate Student Symposium) Coordinator (2018-2019)
Chair, Search for Associate Director of Career Services (2018)
Graduate Committee Member (2012-2014; 2017-2019)
Curriculum Committee Member (2016-2017)
Recruitment, Retention, and Outreach Committee Co-Chair and Chair (2014-2016)
Blaine DeLancey Essay Award Committee Member (2013-2016)
Undergraduate Advisor
Director of an Honors Thesis (2019-2020)
Director of an MA Advanced Project (2015)
Reader on MA Advanced Projects (2016, 2018, 2022)
External Service and Professional Affiliations
Board Member, The Burney Society (2018-Present)
Board Member, Emily Knapp Museum and Library of Local History, Village of Brockport (2016-2022)
Peer Reviewer, Broadview Press (2017)
Academic Reviewer, Supernatural Literature, Cengage Gale (2016)
Peer Reviewer, History of Retailing and Consumption (2016)
Peer Reviewer, Eighteenth-Century Fiction (2015-16)
Peer Reviewer, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture (2014)
Reviewer and Vetter, “Charlotte Lennox,” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism series, Gale Cengage, Inc. (2011, 2021)
Hemlow Prize Judge, The Burney Society (2012-Present)
Member, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies