Jessica Allen Hanssen
I am a Professor of English subject pedagogy in the Department of English at Nord University, and the faculty coordinator for the Bachelor of English degree and the One-Year Programmes in English. My primary areas of interest are American literature, especially 19th and early 20th century fiction, short-story theory, narratology, YA fiction, and middle grades English education. Accredited Teacher (merritterte undervisere) distinction awardee (2021).
I team-teach courses in British and American literature, as well as courses relevant to English education, for the English One-Year Programmes (3EN and 20ENG), the Master of Middle Grades Education (MAGLU), and the Senior Teacher in Social Science (LESAMF) degrees.
In previous years, I have taught courses on fantasy narratives, American Fiction after 1945, Hawthorne vs. Melville, Crime Fiction, and Business English, among others.
My teaching responsibilities include BA, MA, PhD, and practicum supervision, as well as in-service training for English teachers.
In 2014, I was awarded Nord's (then University of Nordland) faculty prize for creating an Outstanding Learning Environment for the subject of English for students and staff (læringsmiljøprisen).
My education research focuses on the intersection of critical theory and middle grades English education and the early introduction of critical reading, and especially reader-response and narratology-based teaching strategies, into the Norwegian national curriculum. In this line, I've recently published articles dealing with neurodiversity and the construction of childhood in YA fiction, the transitional state of teacher education in Norway, and the use of graphic novels to address practitioner identity in teacher education settings.
My literary research engages narratological ideas on structure, narrative persona, and closure, and is mostly focused on 19th and 20th century American writers. In this line, I've recently published book chapters dealing with the limits of technology in David Foster Wallace's Oblivion and the representation of marriage discourses in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. I have forthcoming chapters on the intersection of space and war in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five as well as the role of Irving's Sketch Book in establishing holiday traditions in the 19th century.
I coordinated the 2018 Frankenreads project at Nord University. I am a founding member of Nord's Humanities, Education and Culture research group. I am the local task leader for SEA-EU WP 4.6.