After I graduated from college, I went to work as a deejay and news writer for a country music radio station. I was a terrible deejay. I would get lost in a novel while the music played and forget to put on the next song until a listener called in to complain. It finally dawned on me that I could turn my passion for writing and literature into a career instead of a hindrance to one. I’ve been teaching ever since—and I still smile every time I hear dead air on the radio.
Lee Kahan, Associate Professor
Contact Information
Office Location: Wiekamp Hall, Room 3300F
Office Phone: (574) 520-4305
E-mail: lkahan@iusb.edu
Education:
B.A. Averett College
M.A. Eastern Kentucky University
Ph.D. University at Buffalo, SUNY
Background
Research Interests
My research focuses on the early years of the British novel (1660-1800). I’m interested in how its development was influenced by parallel innovations in mass media after the invention of the newspaper and the magazine. These developments include modern marketing strategies (advertising and branding) and the first celebrity culture (society pages, autograph collecting, biography). I’ve published several articles that examine how we can trace changes in novelistic genre, character and point-of-view to the novel’s fraught relationship with the media forms that it was compared to during the period and with which it competed for readers. I’ve also contributed reviews of eighteenth-century novels and scholarship to the Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, the Annotated Bibliography of English Studies, and The Scriblerian.
Courses Recently Taught at IU South Bend
Reading, Writing and Inquiry (ENG-W131)
Literary and Intellectual Traditions: Ghost Stories (ENG-T190)
Literature in English 1600-1800 (ENG-E302)
British Novel to 1800 (ENG-L347)
Critical Practices (ENG-L371)
London and Edinburgh: Study Abroad (ENG-E302)
British Literature, 1660-1790 (ENG-L631)
English Fiction to 1800 (ENG-L639)
Teaching Interests
My true joy is teaching, regardless of subject matter or level—from freshman writing courses to graduate theses. I mostly teach eighteenth-century British literature, critical/literary theory, and first-year writing. I also love teaching study abroad courses and have taken students to London, Edinburgh and Paris to experience first-hand the places, foods and fashions that populate the literature we read. While I enjoy my classes, my goal is to help students find meaningful learning experiences outside of the classroom through internships, research fellowships and community service. I’ve received two Trustee’s Teaching Awards and am proud to be a member of Indiana University’s Faculty Academy for Excellence in Teaching. But I’m most proud of the accomplishments of my students, who still surprise me after more than a decade at IU South Bend.
Teaching Awards and Grants
Trustee’s Teaching Award
Facet Academy for Excellence in Teaching
Indiana Campus Compact Listening to Communities Grant
Vision 2020 Grant
Curriculum Development Grant