Faculty/Staff Information
Ryan Topper
he/him/his
, English Studies Department
89437 | topperr@wou.edu
BELL 323
Why I chose WOU
At WOU since
09/16/2019Hobbies
Fun fact
Hometown
Favorite book/movie
Office Hours
| Mon | Tues | Weds | Thurs | Fri |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:15-11:00 | 9:15-11:00 | 9:15-11:00 | ||
Classes Taught
| Course | Title | Location | Days | Times |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LIT 230 | INTRO TO LITERARY STUDIES | BELL 332 | --T-R-- | 1200-1350 |
| LIT 382 | CULTURAL TRAUMA & MEMORY | BELL 329 | --T---- | 1000-1150 |
| LIT 382 | CULTURAL TRAUMA & MEMORY | HYBRD* CRS | ------- | - |
Education
Ph.D., University of Leeds
Teaching Focus
I regularly teach on postcolonial literature, African literature, British literature, modernism, cultural trauma and memory studies, literary criticism and theory, poetry and poetics, science fiction, as well as topical courses such as "The Human & the Nonhuman" and "Everything is Spiritual."
Research Areas
I specialize in Anglophone literature of the 20th-21st centuries, with an emphasis on African literature, postcolonial poetry, and global modernism. My research spans postcolonial studies, trauma and memory studies, posthumanism, the environmental humanities, poetry and poetics, psychoanalysis, and religion and the postsecular. I am especially interested in theorizing how Indigenous modes of thought reframe the practice of literary and cultural criticism.
My book, Animist Poetics: Ancestral Trauma and Regeneration in African Literature, is available through SUNY Press. The paperback will be out in February of 2026. https://sunypress.edu/Books/A/Animist-Poetics
My articles appear in English Language Notes, Research in African Liteartures, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, the Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, and elsewhere.
In addition to my position as Associate Professor at WOU, I am a Research Fellow in English at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.For more information, visit my website: www.ryantopper.com
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