Dr. Sara Austin
Assistant Professor of English
Sara.Austin@kwc.edu
270-852-3232
Faculty Office Building 13
My name is Sara Austin and I graduated in 2018 with my PhD in English from the University of Connecticut. Before that, I finished my gender studies certificate at the University of Connecticut in 2014, my Masters in English at Kansas State University in 2012, and my Bachelor’s in English at Mercer University in 2007. I have worked as a college instructor of English and writing all over the country including: Kansas State, Kansas City Kansas Community College, the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, the University of Hartford, the University of Connecticut, and Miami University in Oxford Ohio. 2022 will be my first year at Kentucky Wesleyan, but it will be my 15th year teaching.
Before getting my MA, I taught high school English and Latin, and was a reading interventionist for grades 6 through 8. My background in K-12 education helped me as a co-director of national writing project sites in Connecticut and Ohio, where I worked with teachers to help bring writing into their classrooms. It also fueled my love of children’s literature and culture, which is my primary research interest.
Students can expect to talk about children’s books and comic books in all of my classes, as well as film, television, toys, and other forms of popular culture. I have taught courses in children’s lit, young adult lit, American lit, literary theory, horror, writing, gender studies, and ethnic studies. I am constantly working on new research and writing projects in disability studies, race, gender, and media. So, students can also expect to come on research journeys with me as we learn new things together. I value the use of media and technology in the classroom. Students will use cell phones and/or laptops in class everyday. We will also have class-specific social media and I often teach with YouTube and TikTok. You can view some of my syllabi on my website at https://saraaustinenglish.wixsite.com/website.