Laura J. Kuhlman

I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in English at the University of Iowa.  I received my Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa, specializing in 20th- and 21st-century American Literature, and I also hold a teaching certificate from the University of Iowa Center for the Book. Prior to my graduate work, I received Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and German from Ball State University.

My current book project, The Beat Goes On: Women Writers of the Beat Generation, highlights the many women who were vital to the Beat Movement, and recasts the key themes of existing Beat scholarship to offer new ways to think about, read, and teach Beat writing. My research expands knowledge of women’s midcentury writing, and reveals crucial shifts in postwar gender conventions, attitudes toward domestic labor, and forms of female leadership.

My other research interests include 20^th and 21^st century American literature, gender studies, pedagogical theory, poetry, apocalyptic fiction, science fiction, book history, book studies, and book arts.