English PhD student to start as Assistant Professor at Charleston Southern U in the Fall of 2023
The department is delighted to congratulate Chelsea Hawthorne-Rogers on her new job at Charleston Southern University! Chelsea earned this position on the strength of her work in children’s and young adult literature, with a special focus on representations of gender, fantasy, race, and religion. Her dissertation, “Becoming a Man: Concepts of Writing Witness and Masculinity for Black Adolescent Males in Children’s and Young Adult Literature,” explores the depiction of black boys in children’s and young adult literature. The project focuses on topics pertaining to the intersectionality of blackness, boyhood, and being raised in America. It asks how this intersectionality impacts the lived experiences of black boys and affects how scholars research and write about those experiences. The goal is to show the power of representation and the importance of writing about the black boy as an individual rather than a monolith.
“Approaching the academic job market while completing a dissertation was not an easy feat,” Chelsea writes; “however, I am so grateful for the support I received from my committee as I navigated this season of life.” She continues: “It has been a dream of mine to become a tenured professor at a university where I could make a true impact and now that dream can be realized. I am incredibly excited to be stepping into a tenure-track assistant professor position at Charleston Southern University. It is an honor to be given the opportunity to work with dedicated students and brilliant faculty. With the close-knit community that CSU offers, I look forward to hitting the ground running as a new faculty member.”
Chelsea Hawthorne-Rogers completed her dissertation with the support of a Bilinski Fellowship, 2022-23.