Associate Professor
Ph.D., English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
M.A., English, The University of York, York, England.
B.A., English and Women's Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
Dr Jean Gregorek is an Associate Professor of English who specializes in British and post-colonial literature from the nineteenth century to the present. She teaches courses in contemporary world literature and film, immigrant narratives, literature of globalization, gothic and crime fiction, and women and gender studies, as well as courses in British, Caribbean, and ethnic U.S. literature. Her courses mix classic novels and films with the voices of marginalized or lesser-known writers and filmmakers, always with the goal of encouraging students to imagine a variety of lives and beliefs outside of their own.
Spanning a wide range of topics—from modernist literature to Scandinavian Noir to the prison-industrial complex—much of her own research explores either the cultural work of popular genres (pulp fiction, self-help, television detective series) or the intersections of literature and the history of empire. Recent work has focused on representations of modern ruins in documentary photography and film. In general her interests lie in the ways in which literature and art relate to larger historical forces: social movements, political upheaval, migration, war.
Dr Gregorek serves as faculty mentor to the English Honor Society, and enjoys working with students on senior research theses.
Awards
Canisius University Faculty Summer Research Grant: 2014, 2017.
Publications
“Black Money, Gray Skies: Financial Crimes in Modern Icelandic Drama,” in National Identity and International Crime Fiction in the Age of Globalization, edited by Julie H. Kim (Forthcoming).
Review Essay, Jacob Stougaard-Nielsen, Scandinavian Detective Fiction. GENRE: Forms of Discourse and Culture. 2019.
"The Man Who Refused to Smile: Henning Mankell's Wallander Series and Postmodern Cynicism." GENRE. 2017.
"Fables of Foreclosure: The Police Procedural in Recessionary Ireland." in Class and Culture in Crime Fiction: Essays on Works in English Since the 1970's. edited by Julie H. Kim. 2014.
“The Odd Man: Masculinity and the Modern Intellectual in George Gissing’s Born in Exile.” Nineteenth-Century Studies. 2007/8.
“‘Factories of Exclusion’: The Politics of Prisons in the Era of Globalization.” in Made in Prison: Contemporary Art by Incarcerated Men and Women. Catalog for art exhibition. 2003.