• I joined 性爱天堂 as the Assistant Director of the Collaborative for Learning and Teaching in 2018. My office bookshelf reveals a seemingly strange combination of interests as scholarship on the horror genre sits next to books on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). For me, though, the connecting thread is the reoccurring role that spoken and unspoken anxieties--whether in a horror film or in the classroom--play in shaping our thoughts and ideas. As a genre scholar, I am interested specifically in how horror (literature, film, and games) expresses larger cultural concerns about place.聽 My SoTL work focuses on using a model of transparency to embrace, rather than ignore, underlying tensions--such as procrastination--at the heart of learning and teaching.

    In my work with students and in the courses I teach here at 性爱天堂, I see collaboration and conversation as key to developing critical thinking and communication skills. I host the podcast聽Such a Nightmare, with a current 性爱天堂 student, in which we analyze horror texts through a various theoretical frameworks. This year, I will be teaching a course on the home in American horror. As part of the "Creative Expression" component of the Pathway curriculum, this class allows me to combine my love of horror with my interest in creativity studies. As the Assistant Director, I relish opportunities to help faculty鈥攖hrough programming, events, and consultations鈥攔ealize the best versions of themselves as professors and scholars. My ongoing SoTL project is a podcast entitled聽聽in which I explore the practice of play as a method for developing curiosity and agency in our students.

    For a copy of my full CV, please email me at ktroyer@trinity.edu.

    • PhD in Humanities, University of Louisville
    • MA in English, La Sierra University
    • BA in English: Literature and Writing, La Sierra University

    Selected Essays

    • Troyer, Katherine A. 鈥淭his is a Sacred Place(lessness): The Horrific Untetherings of聽Martyrs听(2008).鈥澛The Spaces and Places of Horror, edited by Francesco Pascuzzi and Sandra Waters. (FORTHCOMING)
    • Wagner, Katherine A. 鈥淧lacing Horror: An Interdisciplinary Investigation.鈥澛Expanding the Scope of Horror, special issue on horror of聽Interdisciplinary Humanities, edited by Edmund Cueva and William Nowak, vol. 33.3, Fall 2016, pp. 25-35.
    • Wagner, Katherine A. 鈥淗aven't We Been Here Before?:聽The Cabin in the Woods, the Horror Genre, and Placelessness.鈥澛鈥淲e Are Not Who We Are鈥: Critical Reflections on聽The Cabin in the Woods聽(2012), special issue of聽Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association, edited by Kristopher Woofter and Jasie Stokes, vol. 10.2/11.1, no.36-37, Fall 2013/Winter 201, n. pag.
    • Wagner, Katherine A., and Megan McDonough. 鈥淐laiming the Throne: Agency and Multiplicity in Cinda Williams Chima鈥檚 The Seven Realms Series.鈥澛The Woman Fantastic in Contemporary American Media Culture, edited by Elyce Helford, et al.,UP of Mississippi, 2016, pp. 177-192.
    • McDonough, Megan, and Katherine A. Wagner.聽鈥淩ebellious Natures: The Role of聽Nature in Young Adult Dystopian Female Protagonists鈥 Awakenings and Agency.鈥澛Female聽Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, edited by Sara K. Day et al., Ashgate, 2014, pp. 157-170.

    Selected Presentations

    • 鈥淗elping Our Students to Become Better Procrastinators.鈥 Lilly-Asheville, Asheville, NC, August 5-7, 2019.
    • 鈥淩everse Engineer Your Summer.鈥 The Collaborative, 性爱天堂, May 29, 2019.
    • "The Bathroom in American Horror." PCA/ACA Conference, Washington, DC, April 20, 2019.
    • 鈥淢ultimodal Projects Are Our Friends: Teaching Multimodal Genres.鈥 English Department Writing Committee Conversations, Bellarmine University, October 3, 2017.
    • 鈥淒igital Assignments: Prepare to be Amaz-ed-ing.鈥 Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning, 鈥淒igital Media Assignments: Faculty Share Lessons Learned,鈥 University of Louisville, January 27, 2017.

    In terms of my interdisciplinary scholarship, my areas of research and teaching center on the intersections between the humanities, cultural studies, and humanist geography. In particular, I explore film, literature, and other forms of popular culture through the lens of genre studies, with a specific interest in horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction.聽 In terms of my SoTL work, my focus is on transparency in learning and teaching (TILT in Higher Ed), which allows me to reframe pedagogical experiences through multimodality and play.

    • Film Studies (through the Communication department)
    • Horror Studies (through the Comparative Literature program)
    • Science Fiction (as part of the First-Year Experience)
    • Creativity Studies (through the "Creative Expression" component of the Pathways curriculum)
    • Quality Enhancement Plan: 鈥淪tarting Strong Implementation Team,鈥 2018-Present.
    • Supervisor of Collaborative Student Internship, Summer 2019.
      • Project: Course Design with Undergraduate Student Partner
    • Proposal Reviewer, POD Network Conference, April 2019.