Naomi Greyser is associate professor of American Studies, English and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa, as well as executive director of POROI, Iowa’s Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry. Greyser examines the emotional dimensions of human expression in language, popular culture, art and daily life – with a focus on intimacy and belonging in North America. She also likes to think about what it feels like to write and conduct research, how ideas travel, and creativity.

Her research and teaching specializations include

• affect studies
• the rhetorical arts
• intersectionality
• multi-ethnic literatures of the U.S.
• American studies
• university studies
• cultural geography and the spatial humanities

On Sympathetic Grounds: Race, Gender, and Affective Geographies in Nineteenth-Century North America, Greyser’s first book, came out at Oxford University Press in 2017. Her research has also appeared, among other places, in American Quarterly, Feminist Studies, American Literature and MELUS (Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.).

Greyser is at work on two interlinked book projects: Blocked: Writing, Race & Gender at the University and Un/Blocked: How Academics Write.  Like a creative lab, idea-kitchen or workshop, Un/Blocked offers tools, intellectual ingredients and practices for researchers to work and play with. This book approaches writing and research as social justice issues, and integrates university studies research with lessons Greyser has learned supporting underserved academics with their inquiry for over a decade with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, where she is head writing coach.

Undergraduate Courses:

• sex & popular culture in America
• diversity & power: examining gender, race, and class in America
• love and romance in America
• chick lit in America
• senior research capstone seminar

Graduate Courses:

• writing for learned journals
• foundations in gender, women’s and sexuality studies
• foundations in American cultural studies

In the classroom, Greyser strives to cultivate learning communities that are pleasurable and challenging, where students learn fresh ways to think about the art, power and limits of representation as well as about gender, race, class and nation. Students are always welcome to visit her office hours to talk about course material and their interests and aims at the university and beyond.