L. Adam Mekler, Ph. D.
Department of English and Language Arts
  Morgan State University
Baltimore, MD 21251
(443) 885-4032
EDUCATION

Drew University.  Madison, NJ.




Ph. D.,  1998 English Literature (Dissertation: "Solitude, Alienation, and Exile: Mary Shelley In Context" (Abstract))

M. Phil.,  1994 English Literature

M. A.,  1992 English Literature (Thesis: "Alienation, Community, and the Search for Identity in African American Northern Migration Literature")



University of Delaware.  Newark, DE.




B. A., cum laude, 1991 Major: English Education
Minor: Psychology

Honors: Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society
Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Morgan State University.  Baltimore, MD. 

Associate Professor
Assistant Professor
Full-Time Lecturer
2009 to present
2003 to 2009
1999 to 2003
 

Drew University.  Madison, NJ. 

Adjunct Lecturer
1998
 

Rutgers University.  New Brunswick, NJ.

Part-time Lecturer.   1995 to 1998  

Middlesex County College.  Edison, NJ.

Adjunct Lecturer  1993 to 1996  

County College of Morris.  Randolph, NJ.

Adjunct Instructor
 1993

PUBLICATIONS

Books


  • Mekler, L. Adam, and Lucy Morrison, eds. Mary Shelley: Her Circle and Her Contemporaries. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010. 



Book Chapters



  • “Hideous Progenies:  Mary Shelley, John Polidori, and Incest in the Godwinian Novel.” Mary Shelley: Her Circle and Her Contemporaries. Ed. L. Adam Mekler and Lucy Morrison. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010. 45-61.
  • “‘Altered by a thousand distortions’: Dream-Work in Mary Shelley’s Early Novels.” CEA-MAGazine. 16 (2003): 38-49. Rpt. in Modern Critical Views: Mary Shelley. Ed. Harold Bloom. NY: Facts on File, 2008. 67-74.



Journal  Articles  


  • “Broken Mirrors and Multiplied Reflections in Lord Byron and Mary Shelley.” Studies in Romanticism. 46.4 (2007): 461-80.
  • “Gender, Class, and Mental Health in Mary Lamb’s Mrs. Leicester’s School.”  Journal for the Advancement of Educational Research. 3.1 (2007): 142-47.
  • “‘Altered by a thousand distortions’: Dream-Work in Mary Shelley’s Early Novels.” CEA-MAGazine. 16 (2003): 38-49.
  • “‘This ain’t no slavery time talk’: The Evolution of African American Folklore in Hurston’s ‘Go Gator and Muddy the Water.’” Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature. 12 (2003): 25-35.
  •  “Recovering the Absent Mother in Jane Austen and Mary Shelley” CEA-MAGazine. 15 (2002): 24-36.
  •  “Placing Maurice Within the Shelley-Godwin Circle.” CEA-MAGazine. 14 (2001): 23-33.
  •  “‘Freedom Found Me’: Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Slave Narrative Form.” Middle-Atlantic Writers Association Review. 14.1 (1999). 24-30.
  •  “Mules, Men, and Women: Zora Neale Hurston’s Use of Folklore.”  Journal of the Middle States Council for the Social Studies. 14 (1992-93): 36-44.



 Encyclopedia/Anthology Entries




  • “John Polidori.” Facts on File Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Andrew Maunder. NY: Facts on File, 2010. 341-42.
  •  “The Vampyre.” Facts on File Companion to Romanticism. Ed. Andrew Maunder. NY: Facts on File, 2010. 470-71.
  •  “Annuals and Gift-Books.” Facts on File Companion to the British Short Story and Short Fiction. Ed. Andrew Maunder. NY: Facts on File, 2007. 13-15.
  •  “Maurice, or the Fisher’s Cot.”  Facts on File Companion to the British Short Story and Short Fiction. Ed. Andrew Maunder. NY: Facts on File, 2007. 279-80.
  •  “Psychoanalytic Criticism.”  Facts on File Companion to the British Short Story and Short Fiction. Ed. Andrew Maunder. NY: Facts on File, 2007. 496-97.
  •  “Pre-Columbian Literature.”  Humanities in the Ancient and Pre-Modern Worlds: An African Emphasis.  Ed. Wendell Jackson, Frances Alston, Linda Carter, et. al..  Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster, 1999.  589-91.



Reviews


  • Review of Romantic Organicism: From Idealist Origins to Ambivalent Afterlife. By Charles Armstrong. Nordic Journal of English Studies. 7.1 (2008): 117-19. <http://hdl.handle.net/2077/10212>.
  •  Review of Approaches to Teaching Gothic Fiction: The British and American Traditions. Ed. Diane Long Hoeveler and Tamar Heller. Rocky Mountain Review. 58.2 (2004): 83-85.
  •  Review of Speaking Volumes: Women, Reading, and Speech in the Age of Austen.  By Patricia Howell Michaelson.  Rocky Mountain Review.  57.2 (2003): 68-70.
  •  Review of Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out.  By Paul Elledge.  Rocky Mountain Review.  56.2 (2002):  96-97.


RESEARCH

2008 Research Trip to the University of British Columbia

Purpose:  Examination of the manuscript of John Polidori’s Diary of the Summer of 1816

 

2006 Faculty Summer Research Grant

Project Title: Mary Shelley and Her Contemporaries

 

2004 Faculty Summer Research Grant

Project Title: Solitude, Alienation, and Exile: Mary Shelley In Context

 

2002 Faculty Summer Research Grant

Project Title: Maternity and the Scene of Instruction in Romantic Era British Women’s Writings

SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS

“Crossing Boundaries: Byron, Polidori, and the Summer of 1816”

College English Association Annual Conference

Richmond, VA. March 2012.




“Fortune and Folly in William Godwin’s St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

College English Association Annual Conference

St. Petersburg, FL. March 2011.




Male Penetration and the Silencing of the Female in Mary Shelley’s Valperga

College English Association Annual Conference

San Antonio, TX. March 2010



“Self-Creation and John Polidori’s Diary of 1816”

College English Association Annual Conference

Pittsburgh, PA. March 2009



“‘Oneirodynia’ and Polidori’s The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold.”

Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English Annual Conference

Vancouver, BC. May 2008



“‘Pollution in My Touch’: Byron, Polidori, and Forbidden Knowledge”

International Conference on Romanticism

Baltimore, MD. October 2007




Mary Shelley, John Polidori, and The Godwinian Novel”

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention

Baltimore, MD. March 2007



“Defending the Criminal Justice System in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

College English Association-Middle Atlantic Group Spring Conference

Rockville, MD. March 2006



“Broken Mirrors, Multiplied Reflections, and Political History in Lord Byron and Mary Shelley”

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention

Cambridge, MA. April 2005



“‘So terrifically wicked’: The Question of Evil in Mary Shelley’s Valperga

South Atlantic Modern Language Association Annual Meeting

Roanoke, VA. November 2004.



“Mary Wollstonecraft’s Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman and the Problems of Female Education”

College English Association Annual Conference

Richmond, VA.  April 2004



“Personal and Political Exile in Mary Shelley’s Valperga

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention

Pittsburgh, PA.  March 2004



“‘Altered by a thousand distortions’:  Dream-Work in Mary Shelley's Early Works”

Eleventh Annual 18th & 19th Century British Women Writers Conference

Fort Worth, TX.  March 2003



“Well-manned Ships and Centers of Trade: Teaching The Last Man

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Convention

Scottsdale, AZ.  October 2002



“Recovering the Absent Mother in Jane Austen and Mary Shelley”

College English Association-Middle Atlantic Group Spring Conference

Washington, DC.  March 2002



“Placing Maurice Within the Shelley-Godwin Circle”

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Convention

Vancouver, BC.  October 2001



 “Using the Internet for Research in a Basic Composition Class”

Roundtable Discussion on Teaching Methodology

Seventeenth Anniversary National Conference of the Zora Neale Hurston Society

Baltimore, MD.  June 2001



“Maternity and the Scene of Instruction in Mary Lamb and Mary Shelley”

Ninth Annual 18th & 19th Century British Women Writers Conference

Lawrence, KS.  March 2001



“Gender, Class, and Mental Health in Mary Lamb’s Mrs. Leicester’s School

Joint Conference of the AAER and NAER

Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.  November 2000



“The Evolution of African American Folklore in Hurston’s ‘Go Gator and Muddy the Water’”

Sixteenth Anniversary National Conference of the Zora Neale Hurston Society. 

Baltimore, MD.  June 2000



“Incorporating the Internet into the Humanities Classroom”

College Language Association Sixtieth Annual Convention

Baltimore, MD.  April 2000



“Incorporating the Internet into the Composition Classroom”

College English Association-Middle Atlantic Group Spring Conference

Largo, MD.  March 2000



“‘Freedom Found Me’:  Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Slave Narrative Form”

Middle Atlantic Writers Association Annual Conference

Dover, DE. October 1999



“‘I enjoy what is’:  Mary Shelley's Final Three Novels”

8th Annual 18th & 19th Century British Women Writers Conference

Albuquerque, NM.  September 1999



“‘Tomorrow he dies the death’: Mary Shelley and The Last Man

7th Annual 18th & 19th Century British Women Writers Conference

Chapel Hill, NC.  March 1998



“Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Use of the Short Story”

4th International Conference on the Short Story in English

Cedar Falls and Iowa City, IA. June 1996



“The African Other: Aspects of Slavery in the Poetic Consciousness of the Early Romantics”

Multicultural Studies Conference

Pittsburgh, PA.  November 1994




“Zora Neale Hurston and African American Folklore”

Women’s Studies Conference. 

Newark, DE.  April 1994



“Mules, Men, and Women: Zora Neale Hurston’s Use of Folklore.”  Journal of the Middle States Council

Middle States Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference

Lawrenceville, NJ. October 1992

Panels Organized

Religion and the Shelley Circle

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention

New Brunswick, NJ. April 2011




Panel Chair, Intertextual Connections in the Writings of the Diodati Circle

College English Association Annual Conference

St. Louis, MO. April 2008




Special Session Chair, Abolition and British Romanticism

International Conference on Romanticism

Baltimore, MD. October 2007




Chair, Mary Shelley Panel

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention
Baltimore, MD. March 2007




Chair, Mary Shelley Panel

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention

Philadelphia, PA. March 2006




Chair, Mary Shelley Panel

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Convention

Missoula, MT.  October 2003

COMMITTEES

Morgan State University

Humanities Committee 
Freshman English Committee, Co-Chair 
Humanities and Technology Ad Hoc Committee

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS



College English Association

            Member, Board of Directors, 2009-12

Modern Language Association

Northeast Modern Language Association

International Conference on Romanticism

South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association

College English Association-Middle Atlantic Group

Member, Executive Council, 2001-8

            Vice-President, 2004-2008

North American Society for the Study of Romanticism

18th and 19th Century British Women Writers Association



REFERENCES



Available upon request.


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