Faculty Profile

Education: BA, MA, PhD, University of Washington
Specialties: 18th- and 19th-century British literature, Literary and Narrative Theory, Comparative History of Ideas

Christine Chaney grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and still loves many things about her Northern California roots — the landscape of golden hillsides, the world-class education system, the social change in the wind (more Harvey Milk than hippies) — as well as the sports teams that always seemed to win. 

Her college years were spent mostly at the Los Angeles and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, but Dr. Chaney made the northward migration to Seattle — and the University of Washington — when she married a Berkeley graduate student who was being recruited to design Boeing airplanes. Later on, after first taking some time to stay home with her two young children, she also completed her master’s and doctoral work at the UW. Now, Dr. Chaney and her husband enjoy the family’s mountain cabin as well as music, art, and movies, happy that their two grown kids (and new son-in-law) also live nearby. 

Dr. Chaney is also an affiliate faculty member at the University of Washington helping them run an innovative partnership, initially funded by NEH and the PEW Charitable Trusts, to foster connection and promote student learning across the transition from high school to college. In previous years, she was assistant director of the UW’s PEW-funded “Preparing Future Faculty” program, and helped found the scholarly journal Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture (Duke University Press). 

Her scholarly interests are wide-ranging, beginning with German Idealist philosophy and extending into higher education pedagogy, Romantic and Victorian literature, and narrative theory. She is currently at work on the topic of narrative ethics for a book manuscript.

Selected Publications

• “The Prophet-Poet’s Book.” Victorian Hybridities: Cultural Anxiety and Formal Invention. eds. U.C. Knoepflmacher and Logan D. Browning. The Johns Hopkins University Press (2010). 
• “The Intimate Familiar: Essay as Autobiography in Romanticism.”  Romantic Autobiography in England. ed. Eugene Stelzig. Ashgate Publications. (2009)
• “Let There Be Light: Faith Integration in the Literary Theory Course.” The Word in the English Classroom. Eds. Jamie Dessart and Brad Gambill. Abilene Christian Press (2009).
• “ The Prophet-Poet’s Book”  SEL: Studies in English Literature. Special issue editor, U.C. Knoepflmacher. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Vol. 48. No. 4. Autumn 2008. 791-799.
• “The Rhetorical Strategies of ‘Turbulent Emotions:’ Wollstonecraft’s Letters in Sweden.” The Journal of Narrative Theory. Special Issue. Eds. Ingrid Geerken and Jeffrey Pence. Vol. 34. No. 3. Eastern Michigan University Press. Fall 2005. 277-303.
• “Sweet Dreams.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. 4.1. Winter 2004. 155-160.