English

Specialization

The Brontës, Harriet Martineau, Thomas Hardy, and Victorian Literature, Women and Literature

Biography

Montana State University, BA in English, BA in French
University of New Mexico, MA
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, PhD

Dr. Torgerson has taught at Eastern Washington University since 2006. Prior to that, she taught at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL. Her book, Reading the Brontë Body: Disease, Desire, and the Constraints of Culture, analyzes the Brontës' novels, placing them within the larger historical context of Victorian medicine and culture.

Recent Publications

Reading the Brontë Body: Disease, Desire and the Constraints of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005; reissued in paperback edition, 2010)
"Gift-Giving and Community in Cather's The Song of the Lark."Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark. Ed. Debra L. Cumberland. (Rodopi, 2010)
Rev. of The Doctor in the Victorian Novel: Family Practices, by Tabitha Sparks. Victorian Review (Forthcoming, June 2011)
Rev. of A Brontë Encyclopedia, by Robert Barnard and Louise Barnard. Nineteenth-Century Literature 63.3 (December 2008): 417-420.

Courses Taught

Senior Capstone: Literature
Literary Eras: Victorian Literature
Major Literary Figures: The Brontës
Major Literary Figures: Thomas Hardy
The Composition Process
Literary London (Honors Spring Break Study Abroad Program)
Women, Literature, and Social Change
Survey of British Literature III, from Victorians to Present
Introduction to Literature