SelectedWorks of Cara E. Erdheim

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Cara Erdheim started at Sacred Heart University as a Visiting Assistant Professor of
English in the fall of 2010. She received her B.A. cum laude in 2001 from Colby College,
where she majored in English and Spanish. She received both her M.A. and Ph.D. from
Fordham University in 2010. 

Dr. Erdheim's research and writing focus on American literature, African American
writing, and environmental criticism. Her doctoral dissertation looked at early to
mid-twentieth-century writings, traditionally classified as naturalist, and argued these
writers participate in an early American environmentalism distinct from urban
industrialism. While working on a longterm book project, "The Greening of American
Naturalism," Dr. Erdheim has published in the fields of twentieth-century American
literature, African American writing, naturalism, and ecocriticism. Specifically, in
2008, she published “Is There a Place for Ecology in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy?” in
Studies in American Naturalism; moreover, “Naturalism’s Dietary Discourse: Fasting Fads,
Vegetable Gardens, and Sinclair’s Social Reforms” has been accepted as an article in
Food, Culture, and Society. 

At Sacred Heart, Dr. Erdheim thoroughly enjoys teaching within the Common and
Foundational Core Curriculums. In addition to Literary Expressions of the Human Journey
and Academic Writing, she will teach an upper-level American Renaissance course this
spring, and has just taught her newly designed freshman seminar, "American Sports
Stories." As an avid athlete involved in competitive figure skating and tennis, she
feels particularly passionate about American sports literature as a new area of teaching
and scholarship.