Bret Keeling

Teaching Professor in English
Dr. Bret L. Keeling’s research interests include modernism, gender and sexuality studies, writing studies, critical pedagogy, literary and critical theory, and service-learning. He’s published papers on H.D., Virginia Woolf, and E. M. Forster. Frequently, Dr. Keeling represents Northeastern University at national conferences, including, most recently, at CCCC (2019) and NCTE (2018). His current projects include “The Politics of Caring: Service-Learning and Reflective Practices in the First-Year Writing Class”; “Music, Musicality, and Intimacy: Performing the Immaterial in Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out”; “Queer Pedagogies, Open Access, and the Social Imagination”; “Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield: The ‘Masculine’ and the ‘Social Imaginary.’”
- Excellence in Teaching Award for 2013, Northeastern University (Spring 2014, Nominated)
- Excellence in Teaching Award for 2010, Northeastern University (Spring 2011, Nominated)
- Joan Webber Outstanding Teaching Prize, University of Washington (Spring 2000)
- “H.D. and the British Modernist Tradition: Kora and Ka, Mythopoesis, and England’s ‘Great War’” (in Approaches to Teaching H.D.’s Poetry and Prose. Eds. Annette Debo and Lara Vetter, 2011).
- “Modernist Anonymity and H.D.’s ‘Pygmalion’: Whose Story Is This?” (in Paideuma: Studies in American and British Modernist Poetry, 2005).
- “Continuing Woolf: Postmodern Homages to Mrs. Dalloway” (in Illuminations: New Readings of Virginia Woolf. Ed. Carol Merli, 2004).
- “‘No Trace of Presence’: Tchaikovsky and the Sixth in Forster’s Maurice” (in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 2003).
- “H.D. and ‘The Contest’: Archaeology of a Sapphic Gaze” (in Twentieth Century Literature, 1998).
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Education
PhD in English Literature, 2000, University of Washington
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Contact
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Address
415 Lake Hall
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115 -
Office Hours
Mondays: 11:45 AM - 12:15 AM (by appointment); Tuesdays: 8:00 AM - 9:30 AM (by appointment); Fridays: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM (by way of virtual appointment)
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Associations
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Contemporary Fiction
ENGL 2430
Studies developments in British and (especially) American fiction in the twenty and twenty-first centuries. Writers featured may include Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, J.M. Coetzee, Graham Greene, Chris Ware, Thomas Pynchon, Jennifer Egan.
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First-Year Writing
ENGW 1111
Designed for students to study and practice writing in a workshop setting. Students read a range of texts in order to describe and evaluate the choices writers make and apply that knowledge to their own writing and explore how writing functions in a range of academic, professional, and public contexts. Offers students an opportunity to learn how to conduct research using primary and secondary sources; how to write for various purposes and audiences in multiple genres and media; and how to give and receive feedback, to revise their work, and to reflect on their growth as writers.
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The Modern Novel
ENGL 2380
Studies the major British and American novelists of the twentieth century. Considers theme and form in such authors as Lawrence, Woolf, Fitzgerald, Ellison, and Hurston.

Advanced Writing in the Technical Professions
ENGW 3302
Offers writing instruction for students in the College of Engineering and the College of Computer and Information Science. Students practice and reflect on writing in professional, public, and academic genres—such as technical reports, progress reports, proposals, instructions, presentations, and technical reviews—relevant to technical professions and individual student goals. In a workshop setting, offers students an opportunity to evaluate a wide variety of sources and develop expertise in audience analysis, critical research, peer review, and revision.