JOHANNA CELIA WINANT

Department of English, West Virginia University

P.O. Box 6296, 229 Colson Hall, Morgantown, WV 26505-6296
johanna.winant@mail.wvu.edu | 650.468.6665

ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT

Assistant Professor, Department of English, West Virginia University, 2016–present

N.E.H. Postdoctoral Fellow in Poetics at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry,
Emory University, 2015–2016
Visiting Instructor, English Department, College of the Holy Cross, 2012–2015

EDUCATION
University of Chicago, Ph.D. in English, June 2014
Dissertation: “The Poetics of Explanation in Modern American Poetry,” directed by Maud
Ellmann. Committee: Srikanth Reddy, Oren Izenberg
University of Cambridge, M.Phil. in British Literature 1700–1830, English Faculty, June 2005
Stanford University, B.A. in English with Honors and Distinction, June 2004

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

American literature from 1850–present, modernism (Anglo, Irish, American, and Portuguese),
transhistorical poetry and poetics, literature and philosophy (particularly analytic philosophy)

BOOK PROJECT
Lyric Logic: American Modernism and the Problem of Induction
The book argues that modern American poetry transforms the philosophical problem of
induction—the difficulty of generalizing from a set of particulars—into an aesthetic strategy.
Inductive reasoning is an insoluble problem in philosophy, but poets recognize that its
logical forms work as a poetic forms, and that its weaknesses for epistemology may, for
poems, be strengths: nimble closeness to lived experience, attention to particularity, easy
accommodation of the new and surprising, and ways of making sense of the world that skirt
established authority.
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PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Walt Whitman’s Formalism,” in the “Logic and Literary Form” Special Issue of Poetics Today
(solicited, under review)
“Somewhere Beneath: Empathy and Other Minds in Ulysses,” James Joyce Quarterly (forthcoming)
“Explanation in Composition: Gertrude Stein and the Contingency of Inductive Reasoning,” jml:
Journal of Modern Literature 39.3 (2016): 95–113
“Ezra Pound and the Value of Explanation,” Paideuma: Studies in British and American Modernism 42
(2015): 171–196

Other Publications
“Acknowledging Cavell,” ASAP/J, Stanley Cavell Memorial Cluster (July 26, 2018)
“All Our Work Holds Good,” Slate (July 6, 2018), reprinted by Arts and Letters Daily (July 6, 2018)
“Muriel Rukeyser’s Memory, or the Ends of Poetry,” Booktimist (February 7, 2018)
“Review of Michael LeMahieu and Karen Zumhagen-Yekple, eds. Wittgenstein and Modernism,”
Modernism/Modernity 25.1 (2018): 207–209
“Review of Megan Quigley, Modernist Fiction and Vagueness,” Modernism/Modernity 23.2 (2016):
472–473
“Choose Another Title” and “Don’t Get Stressed by Meter,” teaching exercises in The Pocket
Instructor: Literature, ed. Diana Fuss and William Gleason (Princeton University Press, 2015)
“Review of Edward T. Duffy, Secular Mysteries: Stanley Cavell and English Romanticism,” Studies in
Romanticism 52.4 (2013): 625–628

FELLOWSHIPS, HONORS, AWARDS

Distinguished Fellowship, Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, 2019
Sigma Tau Delta Award for Outstanding Teaching, West Virginia University, 2018
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Travel Award, West Virginia University, 2017, 2018
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Development Award, West Virginia University, 2016,
2018
Riggle Fellowship in the Humanities, West Virginia University, 2017
Research and Scholarship Advancement Grant, West Virginia University, 2017
N.E.H. Postdoctoral Fellowship in Poetics, The Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry,
Emory University, 2015-2016
Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, Government of Ireland, 2015 (declined)
Modernist Studies Association Travel Grant, 2013 (declined)
Marcia Tillotson Travel Grant, University of Chicago, 2007 and 2012
Rosenthal Foundation Dissertation-Year Fellowship, University of Chicago, 2011-2012
Maramarco Research Grant, University of Chicago, 2011
Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Teaching, University of Chicago, 2011
Century Fellowship, University of Chicago, 2006–2010
Provost’s Summer Research Fellowship, University of Chicago, 2008
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship
Foundation, 2005
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TEACHING EXPERIENCE
American Women Writers, West Virginia University, Spring 2018
Foundations of Literary Study, WVU, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
American Literature 2 (1865-Present), WVU, Fall 2017
Modern American Poetics, WVU, Fall 2017
Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, WVU, Spring 2017
American Poetry, WVU, Fall 2016
Thinking Through the Modern American Lyric (graduate seminar), WVU, Fall 2016
Empathy and Modernist Literature, Emory University, Spring 2016
Critical Reading and Writing, College of the Holy Cross, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014,
Spring 2015
Masterpieces of British Literature, College of the Holy Cross, Fall 2013
Modern British Poetry, College of the Holy Cross, Spring 2013
American Exiles, College of the Holy Cross, Spring 2013
Postmodern British Novels, College of the Holy Cross, Spring 2013
Readings in 20th Century British Literature, College of the Holy Cross, Fall 2012, Spring 2014
Modern British Novels, College of the Holy Cross, Fall 2012
Joyce’s Ulysses, Winter 2011, University of Chicago, awarded the Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student
Prize for Excellence in Teaching
Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath, University of Chicago,
Winter 2010

Other Teaching
Volunteer creative writing teacher in South Middlesex Correctional Center, PEN New England
Prison Writing Program, 2010-2014

SELECTED PAPERS PRESENTED

“The Poetics of the Slowdown.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Comparative Literature Association, Los Angeles, CA, March 2018
“The Work of Games: Elizabeth Bishop Exposes the Rules.” Paper presented at the Modern
Language Association’s Annual Convention, New York, NY, January 2018
“If that which is at all were not forever: Marianne Moore’s Expectations.” Paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, Utrecht, Netherlands,
July 2017
“Walt Whitman’s Formalism.” Paper presented at the Logic and Literary Form Conference, co-
hosted by University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University, Berkeley, CA, April
2017
“All Swans Are White: Walt Whitman’s Catalogues.” Paper presented at “Likeliness and Surprise”
panel of the 18th Annual Conference of the Modernist Studies Association, Pasadena, CA,
November 2016
“The Aesthetics of Induction.” Paper presented at Argus: Interdisciplinary Aesthetics Trust,
Emory University, November 2015
“Again the Sun!: Marianne Moore’s Embrace of Induction.” Paper presented at the “Modernist
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Poetry and Mechanical Technology” panel of the 17th Annual Conference of the Modernist
Studies Association, Boston, MA, November 2015
“What Is It Like to Be Another? Leopold Bloom and Empathy.” Paper presented at the James Joyce
Association Annual Conference, Charleston, South Carolina, June 2013
“Gertrude Stein’s ‘Composition As Explanation’ As Explanation.” Paper presented at the “Difficult
Contexts, Difficult Texts” panel of the 14th Annual Conference of the Modernist Studies
Association, Las Vegas, NV, October 2012
“Skeptical About Elizabeth Bishop’s Skepticism.” Paper presented at Workshop on Poetry and
Poetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, May 2012
“Elizabeth Bishop and the Poetics of Diagnosis.” Paper presented at the Graduate Student
Colloquium on American Literature, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 2012
“Ezra Pound and the Ethics of Explanation.” Paper presented at the Graduate Student Colloquium
on British Literature, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 2011
“Emily Dickinson’s Use of Analogy.” Paper presented at Encontros do Instituto de Cultura
Americana, Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon), Lisbon, Portugal, May 2010
“Coherence and Ethics in Ezra Pound’s Cantos.” Paper presented at the Strange Reading Graduate
Student Conference, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, October 2008
“The Ethics of Reading in Pound’s Cantos.” Paper presented at “The Limits of Intelligibility”
Graduate Student Conference, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, March 2007
“Parenthesis and Memory in Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetry.” Paper presented at the Twentieth Century
Graduate Seminar Symposium, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
United Kingdom, November 2004

SERVICE
Member, Graduate Program Committee, WVU, 2017–2018
Co-Founder and Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Faculty Reading Group in the Humanities, WVU,
2017–2018
Coordinator, Graduate Student Workshop Series on Job Placement, WVU, 2016–2017
Organizer, “Likeliness and Surprise,” a panel at the 18th Annual Conference of the Modernist
Studies Association, Pasadena, CA, November 2016
Co-organizer, “Modernist Poetry and Mechanical Technologies,” a panel at the 17th Annual
Conference of the Modernist Studies Association, Boston, Massachusetts, November 2015
Co-organizer, “Difficult Contexts, Difficult Texts,” a panel at the 14th Annual Conference of
the Modernist Studies Association, Las Vegas, NV, October 2012
Member, Workshop on Poetry and Poetics, University of Chicago, 2005–2012
Editorial Member, Poetry Staff of the Chicago Review, 2006-2010
Moderator, “Poetic Subjects,” a panel at “The Elements of Style” Graduate Student Conference,
University of Chicago, 2007
Graduate Student Representative, the Graduate Student Policy Committee, English Department,
University of Chicago, 2006–2007
Co-organizer, “Access and Excess: Transformations of Literary and Visual Culture in the Long
Eighteenth Century,” the First Annual Romanticism and Eighteenth Century Graduate
Student Conference, English Faculty, Cambridge University, 2005
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PEDAGOGICAL TRAINING
Workshop: “Advising Today’s Holy Cross Student,” one-day intensive workshop on advising,
Center for Teaching, College of the Holy Cross, Fall 2012
Course: Teaching Undergraduate English, Department of English, University of Chicago, Fall 2007
Workshop: “Teaching in The College,” three-day intensive workshop, Center for Teaching and
Learning, University of Chicago, Summer 2007
Course: Pedagogies of Writing, Writing Program, University of Chicago, Summer 2006

LANGUAGES
French (excellent reading, proficient conversation), Portuguese (excellent reading, proficient
conversation), Spanish (proficient reading and conversation), Italian (proficient reading)

AFFILIATIONS

At WVU: Faculty Associate of the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies

Professional/Scholarly Associations and Societies: Modernist Studies Association (MSA), American

Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), Modern Language Association (MLA)