Dr. Jennie Joiner

Division Chair
Professor of English

(315) 279-5259
[email protected]


Academic Credentials

University of Kansas
Ph.D.

University of Oregon
M.A.

Georgia State University
B.A.


Biography

Having spent time in every state except Hawaii, Dr. Joiner’s approach to literature is naturally grounded in understandings of place and geography. In order to illustrate the rich tapestry of American literature and culture, her courses are often structured around topographical and regional locations allowing an examination of how writers define themselves and their literature in response to specific geography as well as the larger American literary tradition.  Introductory courses such as Literature in the Wider World, focusing on the power of storytelling, and Literature, Nature, Place, which focuses on the literary traditions of New York State, highlight the ways in which the human experience is grounded in understandings of specific locations.     

In keeping with this focus, Dr. Joiner is a Senior Collaborating Editor of the Digital Yoknapatawpha project, a National Endowment of the Humanities-funded collaborative project of Faulkner scholars and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), the Digital Media Lab at the University of Virginia. This project translates the characters, locations, and events of William Faulkner’s short stories and novels into interactive online maps that help bring Faulkner’s literary settings alive to modern readers. 

Dr. Joiner’s publications include articles on William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Toni Morrison in the Mississippi Quarterly, Flannery O’Connor Review, Faulkner Journal, and in the forthcoming publication From Yoknapatawpha to the Virtual World: The Shape of Faulkner’s Digital County from the University of Virginia Press (scheduled publication date of 2021).  

When not out and about exploring in the Finger Lakes, Dr. Joiner is planning her trip to Hawaii, hopefully in the midst of a New York winter!