Marquette.edu // English // Faculty and Staff //

Dr. CJ Scruton

Dr. CJ ScrutonMarquette University

Marquette Hall, 249

MilwaukeeWI53201United States of America414-288-3028cj.scruton@marquette.edu

Teaching Assistant Professor

English

My research focuses on ghost stories and other forms of horror and supernatural folklore, usually through the lenses of critical race theory, ecocriticism, and queer theory. My recent publications have explored topics like Irish fairy stories that record the ecological impact of industrialization and the ways early American authors’ ghost stories coincide with rhetorics of colonization. My creative work also includes poetry and memoir, and locally I have been an editor of Cream City Review and the director of the Milwaukee Queer Writing Project.

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and taught English courses there as well as at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and, now, Marquette University.

Courses Taught

Foundations in Rhetoric
Honors First-Year Seminar
Well Versed
Life-Writing, Creativity, and Community

Research Interests

Horror and folklore
Ecology and culture
American literature 1800-present
Queer and trans studies
Global Indigenous studies

Publications

Selected Scholarly Publications

Co-Editor, with Monika Elbert. Nathaniel Hawthorne Review: Special Issue on Hawthorne and the Environment, vol. 49, no. 1, 2023.
“‘Howling and Whistling in off the Sea’: Water, Supernatural Environments, and the Movement of Human and Nonhuman Souls in Conor McPherson’s The Weir.” Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic, vol. 3, 2022, pp. 69-92. Url: https://gothicnaturejournal.com/issue-iii/.
“‘A Kind of Privilege to Haunt’: Settler Structures, Land-Based Knowledge, and the Agency of the (Super)Natural in The House of the Seven Gables.” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, vol. 48, no. 1, 2022, pp. 28-49. Doi: 10.5325/nathhawtrevi.48.1.0028.

Selected Creative Publications

“No Nightmares during the Tornado Warning.” Leavings Literary Magazine, no. 4, 16 June 2023, https://www.leavingslitmag.com/4/no-nightmares-during-the-tornado-warning.
“Séance.” Quarterly West, vol. 106, 1 July 2022, https://www.quarterlywest.com/issue-106-scruton.
“Self-Portraits in Jurassic Park.” Shenandoah, vol. 71, no. 2, 20 June 2022, https://shenandoahliterary.org/712/self-portraits-in-jurassic-park/.
“Harbingers.” CutBank Literary Journal, 12 Nov. 2021, www.cutbankonline.org/all-accounts/2021/10/all-accounts-and-mixture-harbingers-by-cj-scruton.
“A Mosasaur Hums Softly in Her Sleep.” New South, 24 July 2020, https://newsouthjournal.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/cj-scruton-1.pdf.