Katie Brandt

Katie Brandt (she/her) is a Visiting Assistant Professor in British Literature before 1900 at Simpson College. She holds a BA in English from University of Illinois Chicago (2011), an MA in English literature from San Francisco State University (2017), and a PhD in English from University of Illinois Chicago (2026). In 2026, she successfully defended her dissertation, Addictive Practices: Realism and Substance Use in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel, which focused on the construction of the addicted subject in the Victorian novel and how the conventions and form of these novels are reliant on themes of addiction. She was the Graduate Assistant Director of the UIC Writing Center from 2020-2026 and a professional English tutor and summer program coordinator at Malcolm X College Chicago from 2024-2026. At UIC, she taught classes in composition, literature of addiction, and tutoring pedagogy. Her work has been published in Victorian Popular Fictions Journal, the Journal of Historical Fictions and has been featured on both The Dickens Society Blog and The Dickens Project Audio Podcast. This year, she was awarded the UIC English department’s Distinguished Teaching Award. She was a Resident Graduate Scholar at the UIC Institute for the Humanities for 2024-2025 and is a HASTAC Scholar for 2025-2027.

University of Illinois, Chicago, Chicago, IL (August 2019-July 2026)
Doctor of Philosophy, Critical English Studies

San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA (August 2015-August 2017)
Master of Arts, English Literature
Thesis: “Uneasy Corners of Consciousness:”Addiction as Dis-ease in Victorian Realism (2017)

University of Illinois, Chicago, Chicago, IL (August 2008-May 2011)
Bachelor of Arts, English, Cum Laude, College Honors
Senior Thesis: “Shakespeare’s Ghost in the Dickensian Canon: Death, Specters, Jealousy, and Houselessness” (2011)

Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL (August 2007-May 2008)
Courses in Elementary and Special Education

“The ‘Pen-and-Ink-ubus of Writing’: The Death of the Novel(ist) in New Grub Street.” Literature Compass, Special Memorial Issue on Simon J. James, (Under review for 2027).

“‘A Deeper-lying Consciousness’: Lydgate’s Descent into Gambling and Narcotics.” George Eliot’s Unfortunate Men. Vernon Press. (Forthcoming 2027).

“‘Reader, the violence they did’: Employing Metalepsis Towards a Collective Narrative in the Historical Novel.” The Journal of Historical Fictions, Vol. 6, No. 1: 26-44, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.63886/HPIT3701

“‘To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale!’: Endo/Exo-Writer Perspectives of Nineteenth-Century Sex Workers in Madeleine, An Autobiography and Mary Barton.” Victorian Popular Fictions, Vol.5, No. 1: 142-57, 5 July 2023. ISSN: 2632-4253 (online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.46911/GUIL7181

“‘The Golden Thread’: Uniting Benjamin and Dickens Through Death and Memory.” Interpretations, Vol. 28, 2016: 42-65.

FELLOWSHIPS
HASTAC Scholars Program: 2025-2027 Cohort
Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University: 2025 Fellowship Recipient
UIC Institute for the Humanities: 2024-2025 Resident Graduate Scholar

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS
Distinguished Teaching Award, UIC Department of English: 2026 Recipient
Travel Award, UIC Graduate Student Council: 2026 Quarter 3 Recipient
President’s Research Travel Award, University of Illinois System: Fall 2025 Recipient
Anne Hopewell Selby Award for Outstanding Dissertation Chapter, UIC Department of English: 2025 Recipient
Emerging Scholars Award, Nineteenth-Century Studies Association: 2024-2025 Honorable Mention
Conference Award, UIC Graduate Student Council: 2024 Quarter 1 Recipient
Gloria Fromm Award in British Studies, UIC Department of English: 2024 Recipient
Three-Minute Thesis Competition, UIC Graduate College: 2023 People’s Choice Award
Three-Minute Thesis Competition, UIC Graduate College: 2023 Finalist
Chris Vanden Bossche Travel Award, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies Association:
2022 Recipient
Symposium Bursary, The Dickens Society: 2021 Recipient
Gloria Fromm Award in British Studies, UIC Department of English: 2021 Recipient
Dickens Universe Scholarship, SFSU Department of English: 2017 Recipient
Maurice and Ellanore Bassan Scholarship, SFSU Department of English: 2016 Recipient
Charles Davis Award for Best Graduate Student Presentation, RMMLA: 2016 Recipient”