Daemen College : Academics & Research : Division of Arts & Sciences : English : Faculty : Nancy Anne Marck
Nancy Anne Marck
I enjoy teaching British literature, and I like to approach it from a historical and cultural perspective, examining the events and ideas influencing the production of the literary texts we study. I offer survey courses as well as more advanced courses in Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, Victorian literature, and drama. I am interested in film adaptations of literary texts, so I use film clips to illustrate the importance of stage history in Shakespeare, and I also offer a course on the English Novel, using both texts and their counterpart films. My course on the Gothic Imagination examines a subversive literary genre as it develops over three centuries, while major author classes on Chaucer, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens allow for the in-depth study of works produced by one writer in one historical period. As a capstone course, my senior Seminar for English Majors provides an introduction to literary criticism and theory, which is useful for anyone preparing to teach or to attend graduate school.
Most of my scholarly work concerns nineteenth-century English women novelists, particularly Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the Bronte sisters. I am a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and my current research project examines Austen’s transformation into a popular culture icon. My recent publications and conference papers include essays on Austen as well as on Bram Stoker, George Eliot, and Charles Dickens.
Some of my favorite experiences as a faculty member have taken place outside the classroom—my Literature of London course involves a Spring Break trip to visit literary sites in London; with Dr. Peterson, I recently devised an expanded version of the course that included Dublin on our syllabus and itinerary. While a week certainly isn’t long enough to really appreciate either city, it does help to make connections between the literary works we read and the places and times that we read about. As advisor to the English Club, I have also taken some weekend trips with students to visit literary sites in Massachusetts and New York, and I hope to have that pleasure repeated in years to come.