Ian Afflerbach

I have 10 years of experience teaching, speaking, and writing on American cultural politics. Whatever the venue, I try to get my audience to think about the places where our major concerns as citizens and as readers overlap – whether those concerns are "color blind" racism, debates over reproductive rights, or presidential character. We can learn about the big questions in our lives through literature, and learn about literature by spending time understanding political and philosophical writers. My first book, "Making Liberalism New: American Intellectuals, Modern Literature, and the Rewriting of a Political Tradition," was recently published by Johns Hopkins UP in 2021, and illustrates my methods as a scholar. I'm currently writing a book entitled "Sellouts! The Story of an American Insult." My research has also appeared in flagship journals for literary history (PMLA, English Literary History), American Literature (Modern Fiction Studies, Studies in the Novel), and periodical studies (American Periodicals, Amerikastudien).

Before arriving at the University of North Georgia, I taught courses in digital archival work and science fiction periodicals at Georgia Tech, seminars in critical theory at the Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and survey courses in Anglophone literature at UC Davis. At UNG, I regularly teach our African American Literature course, as well as our Introduction to Literary Studies, and our survey of modern American Literature.