Laura Westengard’s Profile Faculty Toggle navigation

American Literature and Culture after 1900, Intersectional Feminism, Queer Studies, Critical Trauma Studies, Gothicism, Medical Humanities

Coordinator–Gender & Sexuality Studies Minor
Faculty Advisor–PRIDE Club
Board Co-Chair–CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies, CUNY Graduate Center
Editorial Board Member–WSQ Journal, The Feminist Press
Member–CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium

Laura Westengard earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Riverside, and she holds an M.A. from the University of California, Riverside and a B.A. from California State University, San Bernardino. Her research and teaching interests include American literature and culture after 1900, queer studies, cultural studies, critical trauma studies, intersectional feminism, Gothicism, and medical humanities. She co-edited the book 25 Sitcoms that Changed Television: Turning Points in American Culture (Praeger, 2018), a collection that explores American culture after 1945 through the analysis of television sitcoms and their cultural resonances. Her book Gothic Queer Culture: Marginalized Communities and the Ghosts of Insidious Trauma, proposes the existence of a 20th and 21st century queer culture that responds to and challenges traumatic marginalization by creating a distinctly “Gothic” aesthetic (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). Using a cultural studies approach to examine the Gothicism in queer art and literature–live burial in lesbian pulp fiction, monstrosity in AIDS poetry, sadomasochism in trans performance art, the undead in contemporary film and television–the book argues that queer culture is Gothic at its core.

Teaching, The Graduate Center, CUNY

PSYC 80103/WSCP 81000: Foundations of Queer Studies

Teaching, New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Literature:
ENG 2000: Perspectives in Literature (Outsider Literature; Gender and Sexuality Through Literature)
ENG 2400: Films from Literature
ENG 3402: Special Topics in Literature (Vampires in 20th and 21st Century American Literature, Film, and Television)
ENG 3407: Gothic Literature and Visual Culture

Gender & Sexuality Studies:
ENG 2160: Introduction to Women’s Studies
ENG 2180: Studies in Identity and Orientation

Composition:
ENG 092W: Developmental Writing II
ENG 1101: English Composition I
ENG 1101CO: English Composition I with co-requisite

Education
Ph.D., English, University of California, Riverside
M.A., English, University of California, Riverside
B.A., English, with highest honors, California State University San Bernardino

Publications

Books:

Gothic Queer Culture: Marginalized Communities and the Ghosts of Insidious Trauma. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019.

The 25 Sitcoms that Changed Television: Turning Points in American Culture. Co-edited with Aaron Barlow. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2018.

Write It: A Process Approach to College Essays with Readings (Third Edition), Instructor’s Manual. Co-authored with Kimberly Turner, Jim Condon, Joshua Fenton, Helen Lovejoy, and Megan MacAlystre. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 2011.

Articles in Refereed Journals:

“Comparing Faculty and Student Perception of Academic Performance, Classroom Behavior, and Social Interactions in Learning Communities.” Co-authored with Karen Goodlad and Jean Hillstrom. College Teaching. 13 April 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2018.1453472

“The Making of a New Writer: Tragedy and Tableau in Steinbeck’s Brooklyn.” Co-authored with Alan Lovegreen. Steinbeck Review. 13.1 (2016): 1-15.

“‘Conquering Immortality’: Gothic AIDS Literature as Queer Futurity in Gil Cuadros’ City of God.” JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory. 45.2 (2015): 274-300.

“Vampire Fantasy: Twilight’s Post-9/11 Neoqueer Vampires.” Assuming Gender. Special Issue “Neoliberal Gender, Neoliberal Sex.” 5.1 (2015).

Chapters in Edited Books:

“Queer Gothic Visual Art.” Queer Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Ed. Ardel Haefele-Thomas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (forthcoming).

“Queer Poetry after 1945.” The Bloomsbury Handbook to Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. Steven Axelrod and Craig Svonkin. London: Bloomsbury Publishing (forthcoming).

“Queer Horror.” The Cambridge Companion to American Horror. Ed. Mark Storey and Stephen Shapiro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

“Queer Gothic Literature and Culture.” Twentieth Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Eds. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn and Bernice Murphy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

“Gothic Gaga: Monstrosity, Trauma, and the Strategic Artifice of Lady Gaga’s Pop Stardom.” Star Power: The Impact of Branded Celebrity. Ed. Aaron Barlow. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014.

Invited Talks and Podcasts:

“Vampire Expert Reviews Vampires In Movies & TV,” Vanity Fair Reviews, Season 1, Episode 8, October 2022.

“Gothic Ghosts: Queer Trauma and its Spectral Reverberations,” Spooky Evenings Lecture Series, Nebraska Wesleyan University, November 2021.

“Monster, Vampire, Cannibal: Queer Horror and the Gothic,” Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, October 2020.

“Gothic Queer Culture,” New Books Network Podcast, September 2020.

“Gothic Queer Culture,” The Morbid Anatomy Online Journal, June 2020.

“Gothic Queer Culture,” Part 1 and Part 2. Why Are People Into That!?, October 2019.