Rachel M. Roberts, PhD

“A professor professes faith in the validity of what he or she teachers or writes” —J. Hillis Miller

• Teaching & Education

  You will learn with me when taking courses in Composition and Rhetoric, Composition and Literature, Introduction to Multicultural Literature, British Literature I, Great Books, and Literary Research.

  Degrees

  • BA, English, Dordt University
  • MA, English, Creighton University
  • PhD, English, Baylor University
• Professional Experience

  My experience includes teaching at the university level since 2013 at Baylor University and at North Greenville University.

  As PhD student, I was a founding member of the Medieval and Renaissance Research Seminar at Baylor University; as an MA student, I worked as an editor at the Center for Henry James Studies at Creighton University.

• Selected Publications
  • “Finding Urania’s Missing Preface in the Correspondence of Lady Mary Wroth,” The Sidney Journal, vol. 37, no. 1-2, 2019, pp. 23-41.
  • “The Judith Narrative in Margaret Tyler’s Mirror of Princely Deeds,” presented at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference, Raleigh, NC, October 2019. Forthcoming in Renaissance Papers 2019.
  • “A Critique of Poor Reading: Antissia’s Madness in The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania.” Presented at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference, Charlotte, NC, October 2018. Published in Renaissance Papers 2018, Edited by Jim Pearce and Ward J. Risvold, Camden House, 2019, pp. 93-104.
  • “‘Englishing’ A Spanish Romance: Translating Spanish Rivalry into English Patriotism in Margaret Tyler’s Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood.” inTRAlinea vol. 19, 2017. http://www.intralinea.org/current/article/englishing_a_spanish_romance
  • “‘A ringworm on the neck of Greatness’: The Body Politic in Elizabeth Cary’s History of Edward II,” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 11, no. 2, Fall 2017, 22-41.
  • “‘If Devils Will Obey Thy Hest’: Devils in Dr. Faustus and The French Historie.” Presented at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference, University of South Carolina at Columbia, October 2017. Published in Renaissance Papers 2017, Edited by Jim Pearce and Ward J. Risvold, Camden House, 2018, pp. 89-99.
  • “‘We that are young’: Youth and Age in King Lear.” The Ben Jonson Journal, vol. 24, no. 1, 2017, Edinburgh UP, pp. 96-116. DOI: 10.3366/bjj.2017.0181.
• Selected Awards Received
  • 2020 North Greenville University Certificate of Scholarship
  • 2020 North Greenville University Annual Faculty Lecture
  • Lilly Graduate Fellow, Fourth Cohort, 2011-2014
• My Story

  I have always known that reading and writing were a central part of my identity, but I used to think that teaching wasn’t for me. As an undergraduate student, however, I fell in love with the way my classes allowed me to read and discuss great works of literature, and I decided to go to graduate school so that I could read and discuss great literature with my own students one day. I was fortunate to attend and benefit from a variety of Christian universities in pursuit of my B.A., M.A., and PhD; my experiences in these various university settings solidified God’s call on my life to teach at a Christian university.

  I met my husband, Nathan, while I was in the English PhD program at Baylor University; we moved to South Carolina in 2016. We love the beautiful mountain scenery of the Upstate, and we are now happily settled in the Greenville area with our dog, Heathcliff.

  Favorite Course to Teach:

  British Literature I (ENGL 2310) – Early British Literature is my specialty (I wrote my dissertation on women writers of the English Renaissance), and I love the chance to read and discuss literature from this period with students. I always have a lot of fun, and I think my students do as well!

• Related Links

  Explore more resources related to this field of study:

  • The Mountain Laurel 
  • Mountain Laurel Submissions
  • The Southeastern Renaissance Conference 
  • My presentation at the 2020 SRC (starts at 1:08:33)