Rate My Professor Katie Kornacki

Katie Kornacki is an Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department at Caldwell University. She earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Connecticut, an M.A. in American and New England Studies from the University of Southern Maine, an M.A.T. from the University of Maine, and a B.A. from the University of Maine. Before joining Caldwell University in approximately 2016, she taught English for three years at Oakhill High School in Maine and served as a teaching assistant during her graduate studies at the University of Connecticut. During her doctoral work, she was a tour guide at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and facilitated programming, including the 'Salons at Stowe' conversation series on contemporary social justice and the history of slavery. At Caldwell, she has directed the honors program, served on the Academic Leadership and Curriculum committees, contributed to the Restart Task Force after the pandemic lockdown, and participated in the task force redesigning the core curriculum.

Dr. Kornacki teaches courses including American Literature, African American Literature, Women in Literature, Literature and the Environment, American Images in Literature, Literature of the Romantic Movement, The American Novel, and Coming of Age Literature. She incorporates experiential learning through field trips, such as visits to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and a walking tour of Harlem for her African American Literature class in spring 2019, and outdoor excursions for Literature and the Environment. In 2017, she was selected as a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar for the institute 'Transcendentalism and Reform in the Age of Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller' in Concord, Massachusetts. Her dissertation is titled 'Margaret Fuller’s Conversations: Self and Other in Nineteenth-Century Literary and Intellectual Culture.' She founded and co-edits the Margaret Fuller Society’s newsletter, Conversations, and serves on its board. In 2024, she guest-edited a special issue of LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory titled 'Intersectional Feminism.' She presented a paper entitled “'The Morning Star of Margaret Fuller': The Woman’s Club Movement and the Legacy of Fuller’s Conversations” and appeared on BBC World Service’s 'The Forum' discussing Margaret Fuller in 2022. She also presented on Frederick Douglass's connection to the women's rights movement.