D.E. (David) St. John (he/him/his) is a teacher, researcher, and poet at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
I research relationships between collective trauma and environmental justice in literature from East Asian and Asian-American writers. I teach classes in Asian-American literature, 20th and 21st Century Literature, the Environmental Humanities, and Poetry
My Background
Since obtaining my PhD from Georgia State University in May 2020, I have published articles that examine hydro-colonialism in the Pacific and automobility in India, written poetry that interrogates the intersections of grief, culture, and memory, and taught graduate and undergraduate seminars at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
PhD., English
Georgia State University, 2020
M.A., English
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga 2014
B.A. English
University of Tennessee 2001
Research
I am driven by questions of how Ecocriticism intersects with Asian American literature and Postcolonial Theory.
I write about traffic and travel, about tourism and toxicity. I focus on the local in order to approach the global. I investigate imperialism and globalization through auto-theoretical examinations of texts that avoid losing track of the individuals inside the Anthropocene.
My dissertation, co-directed by Drs. Jay Rajiva and Randy Malamud, focused on “traffic” as a lens through which to evaluate global models of non-human agency. Since, I’ve published articles on Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, and Lee Ann Roripaugh’s Tsunami vs. Fukushima 50, and presented my research at multiple conferences, including ASLE, ACLA, and Asian Studies. Most recently, I took part in a summer institute funded by the NEH on “Translation and Traveling Texts,” which examined the circulation of poetry in the Sinosphere.
Poetry
Sample poems and essays on craft can be found at my free substack, Horse, Flag, and Umbrella. Click the link to the right for more.
My poetry has been featured in Prairie Schooner, The Atlanta Review, Cutthroat, BODY, and in other online and printed journals.
