Skip to Main Content
Dinsman, Melissa
 

Dinsman, Melissa

Curriculum Vitae

Assistant Professor
English

Phone: 718-262-2525
Office Location: AC-2B10
MDinsman@york.cuny.edu

Office Hours  
Tuesdays  12:00-2:00 

Education

Degree Institution Field Dates
PhD  University of Notre Dame  Literature  2013 
MA  University of York  Modern Literature  2006 
BA  University of Nevada, Las Vegas  English and German  2003 
Melissa Dinsman is Assistant Professor of English and author of Modernism at the Microphone: Radio, Propaganda, and Literary Aesthetics During World War II (2015). Her research focuses on WWII women writers, the politics of the domestic, and information networks. Dinsman is currently at work on her next book project, which explores the ways British women writers sold WWII to the American public. With her colleague, Heather Robinson, Dinsman also writes about Violet Hunt, a forgotten interwar female writer. Some of Dinsman’s most recent work can be found in Modernism/modernity, International Yeats Studies, the new Teaching Modernist Women’s Writing in English collection, and Public Books. She also currently serves as co-President of the Space Between society.

Areas of Expertise

20th-Century British and American Modernism
World War II Literature
Media Studies

Books in Field Of Expertise

Dinsman, Melissa, Megan Faragher and Ravenel Richardson. Mid-century Women's Writing: Disrupting the public/private divide. Manchester: Manchester University Press, under contract. 250pp.

Dinsman, Melissa. Modernism at the Microphone: Radio, Propaganda, and Literary Aesthetics during World War II. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 262pp.

Articles in Field Of Expertise

Dinsman, Melissa. "Marketing Masks and Makeup in Mollie Panter-Downes’s ‘Letter from London’." ELN. Forthcoming: Oct. 2022: 15 pages.

Dinsman, Melissa and Heather Robinson. "Connection Failure: War, Spiritualism, and Communications Media in Violet Hunt's ‘Love's Last Leave’." Women’s Writing. 29.1 Apr. 2022: 20 pages.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Politics and Eugenics in Yeats’s Radio Broadcasts." International Yeats Studies. 3.1 Nov. 2018: 65-80.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Mrs. Miniver Builds the Home Front: Architecture and Household Objects as Wartime Propaganda." Modernism/Modernity. 3.1 Apr. 2018: 48 pages.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Militarizing the Messiah: Britain’s Wartime Re-Branding in The Man Born to Be King." The Space Between. 11.1 Feb. 2016: 27 pages.

Dinsman, Melissa. "‘A river is not a woman’: Re-visioning Finnegans Wake in Eavan Boland’s ‘Anna Liffey.’." Contemporary Women's Writing. 7.2 July 2013: 172-189.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Parody, Play, and Purposeful Deconstruction: A Discussion of Umberto Eco’s Hermeneutic Theory in Relation to his Parodic Practice." Literature Interpretation Theory. 23.1 2012: 70-88.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Imperial Brecht? Bertolt Brecht’s Complex Portrayal of Empire in Mann ist Mann." The Brecht Yearbook. 36 2011: 248-262.

Chapters in Field Of Expertise

Dinsman, Melissa. "Orwell, Una Marson, and Mulk Raj Anand." The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell. Oxford UP Forthcoming: 2023: 20 pages.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Art, Propaganda, and Truth." Guide to Politics and Literature in English. Routledge Invited and Forthcoming: Sept. 2022: 15 pages.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Mother Monsters and Monster Mothers from Dracula to Stranger Things." Monstrous Mothers: Troubling Tropes, Demeter Press. Demeter Press 2021: 223-42.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Adapting Women’s Writing: Melodrama and World War II." Teaching Modernist Women’s Writing in English, MLA book series. MLA Book Series 2021: 157-165.

Dinsman, Melissa, Carrie Johnston, and Liz Rodrigues. "The Digital Labor of Blended Learning: The Reading Cities Project." Humans at Work in the Digital Age: Forms of Digital Textual Labor. Routledge Nov. 2019: 187-204.

Dinsman, Melissa. "Opposing Perspectives: Technology in Modernist Literature." Critical Insights: Technology and Humanity. Salem Press 2012: 146-163.

Non Refereed Proceedings in Field Of Expertise

Dinsman, Melissa. "Adoption and the Abundance of Narrative: A Review of Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know." Public Books. 2019: .

Dinsman, Melissa. "Late to the Party." Modernism/modernity’s “In These Times”. Feb. 7, 2017: .

Dinsman, Melissa. "Dispatch for “Enter the Pussyhat: On the Women’s March, Disrupt J20, and #IWillGoOut." n+1 magazine. Jan. 2017: .

Dinsman, Melissa. "Interview on Intermodernism." The Space Between. Oct. 2016: .

Dinsman, Melissa. "The Digital in the Humanities: A Special Interview Series." Los Angeles Review of Books. Mar-Aug 2016: .

Dinsman, Melissa. "Markus Krajewski’s World Projects: Global Information Before World War I." Los Angeles Review of Books. Oct. 2015: .

Reviews in Field Of Expertise

"George Orwell Studies" Forthcoming: Spring 2022: 3 pages.

"Modernism/modernity" 2021: 202-204.

"The Space Between" 2018: 2 pages.

"Modernist Cultures" 2012: 309-311.

"The Information Society" 2012: 55-56.

"Modern Fiction Studies" 2011: 810-812.

 

Presented Papers, Lectures, and Exhibitions and Performances

" Two-Way Radio: George Orwell, Una Marson, and Mulk Raj Anand " June 2021: The Space Between.

" War Made Palatable: Selling British Domestic Upheaval to America. " Oct. 2019: Modernist Studies Association.

" Reading New York: Discovering Literature and History through Digital Writing " Jan. 2019: Modern Language Association.

" Seminar Leader: Seeing Modernist Reading. Modernist Studies Association " Nov. 2018: Modernist Studies Association.

" Night Vision and the Wartime Literary Imagination of Elizabeth Bowen " Nov. 2018: Modernist Studies Association.

" 'You Puzzle': Night Vision and Wartime Literary Imagination " June 2018: The Space Between.

" Profession and Pedagogical Talk: “Digital Humanities in the Space Between " June 2017: The Space Between.

" Perceiving Women in the Thrillers of Hamilton and Greene " June 2017: The Space Between.

" Invited Talk. Mrs. Miniver Builds the Home Front " Feb. 2017: University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

" Recovery Work: Digital Approaches to the Archive " Jan. 2017: Modern Language Association.

" Crossing the Boundaries: Feminism, Pedagogy, and the New Modernist Studies " Jan. 2017: Modern Language Association.

" Panel Organizer. Modern Sound and the War Industry " Nov. 2016: Modernist Studies Association.

" Hamilton’s Radar: Weaponizing Sound in WWII " Nov. 2016: Modernist Studies Association.

" Lightning Talk. Reading Cities " Nov. 2016: CUNY DHI: Digital Humanities Community.

" Patrick Hamilton, Graham Greene, and the Sound of Surveillance " June 2016: The Space Between.

" Panel Organizer. Networking Modernisms " Mar. 2016: American Comparative Literature Association.

" Melodrama and Propaganda: Narration in 1940s Modernism " Mar. 2016: American Comparative Literature Association.

" Dreaming Too Big? How Cross-and Intra-Institutional Collaboration Saved ‘Reading New York' " Nov. 2015: Digital Scholarship Conference.

" Building the Home Front: Architecture and Domesticity in MGM’s Melodrama " June 2015: The Space Between.

" New Modernist Networks: Orwell and Anand in the BBC’s Indian Section " Nov. 2014: Modernist Studies Association.

" Seminar Paper. Melodramatic Scenery as Cinematic Propaganda " Nov. 2014: Modernist Studies Association.

" Wartime Adaptation as Cultural Crossing: Jan Struther Spans the Atlantic " July 2014: The Space Between.

" America’s Blitz: Hollywood’s Re-Writing of Jan Struther’s Mrs. Miniver " Apr. 2014: Northeast Modern Language Association.

" Playing with Ghostly Networks: Thomas Mann’s BBC Broadcasts " June 2013: The Space Between.

" Clogged Networks: The Theoretical and Practical Difficulties of Radio Archivization " Mar. 2013: Society for Cinema & Media Studies.

" Panel Organizer. Sound Effects: Radio and Aural Spectacle in the Second World War " Oct. 2012: Modernist Studies Association.

" War on the Air: MacLeish and Welles’s Spectacular Events " Oct. 2012: Modernist Studies Association.

" The Power of the Adornian Voice in Orson Welles’s The War of the Worlds " Mar. 2012: American Comparative Literature Association.

" Seminar Paper. Networking Potential in George Orwell’s Radio Images " Oct. 2011: Modernist Studies Association.

" Imperial Brecht? A discussion of Bertolt Brecht’s Complex Portrayal of Empire and the East as Seen in Mann ist Mann and Die Maßnahme " May 2010: 13th Symposium of the International Brecht Society.

" Playboys Learning the Language of Caliban: An Analysis of the Post-colonial Condition in Three Versions of The Playboy of the Western World " Apr. 2010: American Conference for Irish Studies.

" Cooperative or Co-opted Communication? Understanding Bertolt Brecht’s Radio Plays " Apr. 2010: Northeast Modern Language Association.

Professional Honors, Prizes, Fellowships

CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation for Visual Studies: 2015-2016.

Grants-In-Aid

PSC-CUNY, Edited Collection: Domestic Politics: Women’s Private Lives and Public Writing in the Mid-Century. July 2022: $3499.45.

PSC-CUNY, Edited Collection: Domestic Politics: Women’s Private Lives and Public Writing in the Mid-Century. July 2021: $3499.45.

PSC-CUNY, War Made Palatable: Selling British Domestic Upheaval to America. July 2020: $3499.45.

PSC-CUNY, Weaponized Modernism: Surveillance in WWII British Literature. July 2019: $3499.45.

Modernist Studies Association, Weaponized Modernism. 2019-2020: $1,000.

William Stewart Travel Award, MSA Conference Travel. Jan. 2019: $300.

Runner Up, Research in the Classroom Grant (CUNY), Reading New York: Augmenting Literature to Discover History. spring 2018: $1,000.

Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (CUNY), Weaponized Modernism: Surveillance in WWII British Literature. spring 2018: course release.

CLIR Visual Studies Digital Humanities Grant Extension, Reading Cities. Oct. 2017: $2,100.

PSC-CUNY, Weaponized Modernism and the Home Front: Surveilling the Enemy Within. July 2017: $3,490.

William Stewart Travel Award, MSA Conference Travel. Nov. 2016: $300.

CLIR Visual Studies Digital Humanities Grant, Reading Cities. 2016-2017: $5,000.

Offices Held In Professional Societies

Co-President, The Space Between Society: July 2019 - present.

Web Manager, The Space Between Society: July 2018 - June 2020.

Co-Web Manager, The Space Between Society: July 2017 - June 2018.

Advisory Board Member, The Space Between Society: July 2016 - June 2018.

Other Professional Activities and Public Service

Peer-reviewer for Edinburgh University Press (book proposal): 2021.

Conference Committee, The Space Between Society: 2020-2021.

Mentorship Committee, The Space Between Society: 2020-2021.

Peer-reviewer for Clemson University Press (book proposal): 2020.

Peer-Reviewer for London Literary Journal: 2020.

Peer-reviewer for Routledge (book manuscript): 2019.

Peer-reviewer for The Space Between: 2019.

Peer-reviewer for Journal of Modern Periodical Studies: 2018.

Peer-reviewer for Modernist Cultures: 2017 - 2018.

Peer-reviewer for Radical History Review: 2016.