Jessica Baldanzi

My current research interests are comics/graphic novels and gender studies. My book Bodies and Boundaries: Female and Nonbinary Characters in Graphic Fiction came out in paperback in January 2024. The book is part of the Routledge Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Comics series, edited by Frederik Byrn Kohlert.

My article “Narrating Reproductive Trauma from the Inside Out,” which explores the comics artist Thi Bui’s memoir The Best We Could Do, will be included in the academic collection Graphic Mothers, forthcoming on Demeter Press in Canada.

Ms. Marvel’s  America: No Normal, a collection of scholarly essays that I co-edited with fellow comics scholar Hussein Rashid, was published by University Press of Mississippi in 2020. You can read more about it here, and listen to Hussein and me talk about it in this New Books Network podcast episode. I was also a recent panelist discussing women in comics on the podcast Graymalkin Lane.

Public scholarship has always been important to me, so you can find my comics review blog at commonscomics.com. You can read an earlier article about my work with comics here, and one about the special journal issue I co-edited here.

I’m always working on creative pieces of my own. My most recent creative publication, an experimental work called “Space Planning Proposal for My Brain,” went live in the west-coast literary journal Exposition Review in July 2024.

I also have poems published in the online journal The Shore and the Stockholm University print journal Two-Thirds North.

I’m currently developing a book proposal about returning to pregnancy after experiencing a stillbirth. I’ve published two pieces about that experience–see “Selected Publications” below.

I especially enjoy working with my creative writing students to develop their own unique voice, and to take the next step in the creative writing process: sending out their work for publication.

SUMMER 2024

GLST 271, “Poetry and Purpose in Northern Ireland,” was held at the Corrymeela Community just outside of Ballycastle, Northern Ireland (UK) for three weeks from the end of May through mid-June. Look for this course to run again in the summer of 2026. Join us!

FALL 2024

ENGL 203, Introduction to Creative Writing

CORE 187 AW (CORE), Poetry of Hip-Hop

CORE 110, Academic Voice

SPRING 2024

ENGL 235 AW (CORE), Comics and Graphic Novels

ENGL 336, Writing Memoir

MAY 2024

ENGL/COMM 204, Expository Writing

Historic Courses

CORE 100, Identity, Culture, and Community

ENGL 110 Literature and Writing: “Truth, Fiction, and Storytelling,” “Medical Myths”

CORE 184 Goshen Seminar, “Are We Still Human?”

ENGL 201  Postcolonial Literature

WGS 275/Comm 385, Gender and Popular Culture

ENGL 300  Philosophy and Interpretation of Culture (Critical Theory)

MCLL 300  International Classics

ENGL 303  American Literature Survey

ENGL 307/WOST 325  Writing the Body

ENGL 309  American Literature II

ENGL 330  Writing Fiction

ENGL 332 Writing Poetry

“Narrating Reproductive Trauma from the Inside Out: Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do.” Forthcoming in Graphic Mothers: From Underground Comix to Autographics. Ed. Marina Bettaglio. Demeter Press, Fall 2024.

“Space Planning Proposal for My Brain.” Exposition Review. Vol. IX: “POP!”

Bodies and Boundaries in Graphic Fiction: Reading Female and Nonbinary Bodies. Routledge (UK), July 2022. Paperback January 2024.

“Chemotrail,” Two Thirds North, Stockholm University, 2023. Print.

“Rough Beast Flies,” The Shore, theshorepoetry.org.

Reviews of Shelterbelts and Nightbitch for Mennonite Quarterly Review (January and April 2023).

Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal. Co-editor with Hussein Rashid. University Press of Mississippi, 2020.

“Introduction” (with Hussein Rashid) and “‘I Would Rather Be a Cyborg’: Both/And Technoculture and the New Ms. Marvel.” Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal.

“Beyond Hair Bows and Cleavage: Helping Women Draw Their Iconic Selves.” Lessons Drawn: Essays on the Pedagogy of Comics and Grahpic Novels , ed. David Seelow, McFarland Books, 2019.

Review of Monster Portraits for Journal of Mennonite Studies (2019).

Graphic Novel special issue, Center for Mennonite Writing Journal,  co-editor with Mary Roth, 2016

Review of Blush for Journal of Mennonite Studies (2016).

“Instructions for the Bereft. Chapter VIII: Returning to Work. b) In a Small Town.” Booth: A Journal. November 2015. http://booth.butler.edu/2015/11/27/instructions-for-the-bereft/

Broken and Blessed: The Writing of Heidi Siemens-Rhodes. Co-editor with Bethany Swope. Pinchpenny Press, June 2015.

“On Letting Go.” Essay in Three Minus One, book project accompanying the film Return to Zero. Eds. Brooke Warner and Sean Hanish. She Writes Press. April 2014.

Review of Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels for Mennonite Quarterly Review, January 2014.

Review of Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies 12:1 (January 2011). www.safundi.com

“Jean Toomer.” Entry in Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Maple Scholars project begun summer 2010, “Stories of Traumatic Birth, Grief, and Hope,” interview project with student Chelsea Kauffman.

Review of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Center for Mennonite Writing Journal 1:5 (September 2009).

“Bloodlust for the Common Man: The Sopranos Confronts Its Volatile American Audience.” Reading the Sopranos: Hit TV from HBO. Ed. David Lavery. Reading Contemporary Television Series. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.

“Stillborns, Orphans, and Self-Proclaimed Virgins: Packaging and Policing the Rural Women of Cane.” Genders 42 (Fall 2005): 17 pp. Genders archive, 1998-2003.

“What Remains: (De)composing and (Re)covering American Identity in As I Lay Dying and the Georgia Crematory Scandal.” Co-written with Kyle Schlabach. Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 36.1 (Spring 2003): 38-55.

Goshen College

• IDEA grant, Summer 2023, to research new class, “Poetry and Purpose in Northern Ireland.”
• Mininger grant, Spring 2023, to present at International Comic Arts Forum, Vancouver, BC.
• Office for Community Engaged Learning grant, Summer 2022, to complete training for the Inside-Out program.
• Office for Community Engaged Learning grant, Fall 2021-Spring 2022, to explore working with  community members and students on collaborative writing and publication.
• Mininger grant, Fall 2021, to complete publication of Bodies and Boundaries.
• Mininger grant, summer 2020 for nonfiction manuscript workshop. COVID-delayed.
• One-semester sabbatical, spring 2020
• Mininger grant, summer 2019, Indiana University Writer’s Conference, poetry workshop with Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• President’s Renewal Grant, 2018-19 to develop book manuscript on comics and the female body
• Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Finalist for Best Community Volunteer Program, “Could Lead to Dancing” WGCS 91.1 The Globe, 2019
• Maple Scholars 2018, co-led with Jeanette Shown, AI Meets the Graphic Nerd
• Mininger grant summer 2018 for Screenwriting at Interlochen College of Creative Arts, MI
• Mininger grant summer 2017 for Blogging for Artists and Writers class at Interlochen College of Creative Arts, MI
• Mininger grant summer 2016 for Typesetting One at the Center for Book Arts, NYC
• Mininger grant summer 2015 for Indiana University Writers’ Conference (with Lynda Barry and Dan Chaon)
• Mininger grant summer 2014 for online Fiction Writing class at the New School, New York City
• Mininger grant summer 2011 for Fiction Writing workshop at Drew University, Madison, NJ
• Maple Scholars, Summer 2010, Interview project, “Stories of Traumatic Birth, Grief, and Hope”
• Mininger Conference Grant, March 2009, Iowa Summers Writers’ Conference
• Mininger Conference Grant, March 2008, Indiana University Writers’ Conference

Indiana University, Bloomington

• Departmental Teaching Fellow, Fall 2002–Spring 2004
• President’s Summer Undergraduate Research Initiative Grant, Summer 2003
• Dissertation-Year Fellowship, Indiana University English Department, Fall 2001–Spring 2002
• TERA Award for Outstanding Teaching, Spring 2000

Northwestern University

• Honors Thesis in Women’s Studies, Spring 1992
• Phi Beta Kappa, Spring 1992

• English department chair, 2020-present
• Spanish department chair, 2022-present
• Humanities School co-chair 2019, 2023-24-present
• New faculty mentor, 2022 (and previous)
• Athletics/Academics committee, 2021-2022
• Maple Scholars committee 2020-2022
• CORE assessment team for critical and reflective thinking, summer 2020
• PALNI grant for no-cost course development, summer 2020
• Faculty governance task force, summer-fall 2019
• Storytelling Center planning retreat with Communications Dept., June 2019
• PALNI workshop, May 2019
• Association of College and University Educators online course for Effective Teaching Practices, 2018-2019
• Hiring committee chair, Assistant Professor of English, spring 2019
• Multiple promotion committees
• Council for Independent Colleges Workshop, “Strengthening Department and Campus Leadership,” Summer 2018
• Adviser for Creative Writing Club
• Co-adviser, with Anna Kurtz Kuk, for Goshen Monologues (past)
• Space Planning Committee (past)
• Higher Learning Commission Committee (past)
• Adviser for Pinchpenny Press
• Academic Voice convocation coordinator (past)
• Academic advising
• MLK, Jr., Day Coffeehouse, coordinator (past)
• Core Curriculum Committee (past)
• Evaluator of scholarship applications for Celebrate Scholars weekend (past)
• Mininger Review Team (past)
• Grievance Committees (past)
• Adviser for Red Cents (past)
• Adviser for Is the Word poetry slam (past)

• Commons Comics, comics review blog, commonscomics.com. Previous hosts: Elkhart Truth, Goshen Commons.
• Disc Jockey, “Could Lead to Dancing,” WGCS-FM, The Globe, 2007-present
• Narrator, table read, “Absolution,” screenplay by David Kendall and Steve Freeto, December 2023
• Reader, “Sure on This Shining Night,” by James Agee. Vox Profundi, Homecoming Music Gala, October 2022
• “A Conversation about Mind Control and Sexual Assault (from the 1940s to 2000). Podcast panelist with Susan Kirtley, Carrie Harris, Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos, and Marsheila Rockwelland. Graymalkin Lane. October 2022
• Writing workshop for nonprofit summer camp led by DaVonne Harris and Regality, Elkhart Public Library, June 2022
• “A Conversation about the Changing Portrayal of Women in Comics.” Podcast panelist. Graymalkin Lane. February 2022
• “Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid, “Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal.” Podcast guest. New Books Network. February 2021
• ‘Tis the Season video benefit for The Window, invited musician, Winter 2020
• “A Very Mutant Christmas.” ‘Tis the Season Benefit, invited reader, Ignition Music Garage, Goshen IN, December 2019
• Narrator, Deep Dive documentary, Spring 2018
• Narrator, live script reading, “Untitled Breakup Comedy” by Jim Strouse, Riverbend Film Festival, Spring 2016
• Youth Mentor, Assembly Mennonite Church
• 91.1 Globe Fund Drive, yearly
• Disc Jockey (DJ NoCoast), “Crop Circles,” Breakthruradio.com, Fall 2008-Spring 2010
• Actor and bassist, “Action Comedy,” New World Arts, Spring 2007

Goshen Writers summer benefit for Art House, invited reader, Summers 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

“Comics and the Pregnant Body: Reproductive Trauma and Reclamation in Kid Gloves and The Best We Could Do,” International Comic Arts Forum, Vancouver BC, April 2023.

Panel chair, “The Body (poetry),” with Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Becca J.R. Lachman, and Barbara Nickel. Mennonite/s Writing Conference, Fall 2022

“Creating a Commons for Comics: Blogging and Public Scholarship,” panelist for roundtable New Frontiers in Comics Scholarship: Public and Personal Approaches, Toronto Comics Arts Festival Academic Symposium, Summer 2022

“Tillie Walden’s On a Sunbeam: The Promise and Perils of Utopian Bodies, Spaces, and Genres.” Michigan State University Comics Forum, East Lansing MI, February 2020.

“A Very Mutant Christmas,” ‘Tis the Season benefit, co-host and invited reader, Ignition Music Garage, Goshen IN, Winter 2019

“Monstrous Resistance: The Horror of the Female Body in Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters,” Popular Culture Association, Washington DC, April 2019

“Ms. Marvel’s America: Comics and Cultural Conversation,” GC Faculty Scholars Series, March 2019

Writing Reproductive Loss, discussion circle co-leader with Susanna Childress, Festival of Faith and Writing, Grand Rapids MI, April 2018

Goshen Writers Read, invited speaker, fall 2018

History of Comics talk at Goshen Public Library for Free Comic Book Day, May 2017

Faculty and alumni reading, spring 2017

“I Heart Comics: The Cultural Power of Comics and Graphic Novels,” Afternoon Sabbatical, February 2017

“Santa Needs a GPS,” ‘Tis the Season benefit, invited reader, Ignition Music Garage, Winter 2016

Goshen Writers Read, invited reader, Art House, Fall 2016

Goshen Green Drinks, invited speaker, Summer 2016

“The New Ms. Marvel: ‘Inhuman’ Teen, Muslim Superhero, Cyborg Goddess,” Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association National Conference, Seattle, WA, March 2016

Goshen Writers Read, invited reader, Fall 2015

“Shape-Shifting to Fit the Body Politic: Ms. Marvel’s Complex Battle for Justice, Assimilation, and Survival,” University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, Gainesville, Florida, April 2015

Three Minus One book release, Better World Books, Goshen IN, June 2014

Sermon, “Living with the Lost: Story as Resurrection,” Assembly Mennonite Church, Goshen IN, May 2014

Goshen Graphix II book release, Better World Books, Goshen IN, April 2014

“Chris Ware’s Building Stories: Revisiting and Revising Modernism in the Midwest,” The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, University of Louisville, Louisville KY, February 2014

Presentation on Goshen College at What English Professors Do All Day, Notre Dame Graduate English Department, South Bend IN, November 2013

“Representing Reproduction in Aya of Yop City,” Midwestern Conference on Language, Literature, and Media, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb IL, March 2013

Excerpt from “Spring and Fall,” Art in the Barn, Goshen IN, October 2011

“The Changing Student ‘Self’ at a Religious Liberal Arts College: Assessing and Adjusting the First-Year Writing Curriculum to Address Major Changes in the Student Body,” Panel Presentation, International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Bloomington IN, October 2009

“Freaks, Geeks, and Paupers: Biologizing Class in a Democratic Utopia,” University of Louisville Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, February 2007

“The Bluest Eye: Story over Stereotype,” Women’s Studies Week Lecture, Goshen College, February 2007

“Eugenics and Popular Culture,” Invited Class Presentation, History of Eugenics Graduate Seminar, Indiana U—Purdue U, Indianapolis, November 2006

“What Remains? Composing and Decomposing National History with the Georgia Mortuary Scandal” (joint presentation with Kyle Schlabach, Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Minneapolis, MN, November 2002

“Whose New Race? Sanger, Toomer, and 1920s Narratives of American Eugenics, ” Society for Literature and Science Annual Convention, Atlanta, GA, October 2000

“Engineering Subversion: Our Geek American Heritage,” University of Louisville Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, February 2000

“Reproducing a Feminist Nation from 1915 to the Edge of the Millennium,” University of Louisville Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, February 1999

“Mothering Subversion: Pop Culture Moms ‘Nurture’ Resistance to Institutionalized Reproduction,” Society for Literature and Science Annual Convention, Gainesville, FL, November 1998

“Protecting Our Mothers, Defining Ourselves,” University of Louisville Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, February 1998

Current:

Comics Studies Society

Modern Language Association

Rotating:

Midwest Modern Language Association

Popular Culture Association

Science and Literature Society