Jo Adams

Postdoctoral Fellow

I study twentieth-century US literature with one eye toward narrative form and the other toward race and ethnicity. My current research works within this framework but turns to time for a conceptual anchor—how we experience time, how we think about time, how we talk about time, and how we organize time. I am primarily interested in the methods and logics we use to create temporal arrangements, as well as the extent to which our environments, identities, belief systems, and experiences can (do!) affect those methods and logics. Because my work is inherently interdisciplinary—I dabble in a variety of fields and approaches, including design and architecture, ethics, theories of music, and neuroscience and physics—my classrooms are, too: one class session is never about only one thing, and I’m always learning alongside my students. This is one of the reasons I’m excited to be a part of the Engagements experience, which promotes and creates diverse opportunities for critical inquiry, genuine curiosity, and knowledge creation and discovery.