Alice Rutkowski received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and became a member of the Geneseo faculty in 2003. She often teaches the courses Literature and the Civil War, the Queer Nineteenth Century, Safe Zone Train-the-Trainer, Feminism and Pornography, and Major Authors: Melville, among others. Her research centers on the Civil War and Reconstruction as well as queer theory and trans politics. She received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012 and the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service in 2022. Recent articles include the articles "Bad Sex Ed" and "Trans Feeling in the Nineteenth Century." She has also published in Radical Teacher, the volume Mothers and Sons: Centering Mother Knowledge, Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers and Studies in the Literary Imagination.
Rutkowski has been Chair of the Department of English since 2021, and is the chair of the Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society selection committee. In 2013, she founded the LGBTQ Issues Working Group. Rutkowski is the coordinator of the Geneseo Safe Zone Network. To request a Safe Zone training for your group, please click here.
Classes
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ENGL 467: Lit: Women & the Civil War
A course focused on a narrowly-defined topic, theme, issue, question, approach, scholarly debate, movement, or group of authors in 1700-1900 literature. In addition to helping students to acquire in-depth understanding of the literature, the course stresses the ability to "join the conversation" that is always ongoing among critics and scholars regarding texts, authors, and topics by engaging with secondary sources.
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WGST 233: Safe Zone Leadership
This course is intended for student facilitators in the campus Safe Zone program. Students will learn the logistics of how the program is administered and take on specific leadership roles in Safe Zone like selection of new students, new curriculum development, advertising and outreach.