Rate My Professor Leslee Thorne-Murphy

Leslee Thorne-Murphy is a Professor in the Department of English and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities at Brigham Young University. She teaches classes in literature and composition with a focus on British literature of the nineteenth century. Favorite texts include works by the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Her teaching cultivates skills in close reading, fluid writing, careful analysis, and persuasive argumentation through projects like designing exhibits, contributing to academic websites, participating in conferences, and editing texts for digital anthologies. Thorne-Murphy earned her B.A. and M.A. in English from Brigham Young University and her Ph.D. in English from Brandeis University. Her academic career at BYU progressed from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor and then full Professor in the Department of English.

Thorne-Murphy's research examines the relationship between Victorian social reform fiction and philanthropic innovation, including charity bazaars, women's civil society, and narrative prose genres from Victorian periodical publication. Major publications include her monograph Bazaar Literature: Charity, Advocacy, and Parody in Victorian Social Reform Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2022) and the co-edited collection Philanthropic Discourse in Anglo-American Literature, 1850-1920 (Indiana University Press, 2017) with Frank Q. Christianson. Selected articles are “Experiential Learning and the Value of Novice Scholars: Victorian Short Fiction and the Periodical Market” (Victorian Periodicals Review, forthcoming 2024), “Re-Authorship: Authoring, Editing, and Coauthoring the Transatlantic Publications of Charlotte M. Yonge’s Aunt Charlotte’s Stories of Bible History” (Book History, 2010), “The Charity Bazaar and Female Professionalization in Charlotte M. Yonge’s The Daisy Chain” (SEL: Studies in English Literature, 2007), and “Prostitute-Rescue, Rape, and Poetic Inspiration in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh” (Women’s Writing, 2005). She has received the Humanities Center One Year Fellowship (2018), Douglas K. Christensen Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellowship (2012-2015), Department of English Teaching Award (2011-2012), and several travel and research grants. Service includes Associate Chair of English (2012-2017), Director of study abroad programs such as London Centre (2022) and British Literature and Landscape (2019), and membership on university councils. Ongoing projects encompass the Victorian Short Fiction Project as Executive Editor and an anthology of nineteenth-century children’s literature of faith. Public lectures include “Christmas Ghost Stories: A Victorian Tradition” (Salt Lake County Library, 2022).