Selected Literary Scholarship
My research examines how meaning emerges through acts of reading shaped by form, context, and constraint. Across historical and contemporary texts, I am interested in how readers are trained to attend, interpret, misread, and revise understanding, and how those practices are influenced by social norms, aesthetic form, and media platforms.
This essay was written as a graduate-level literary analysis examining reading, judgment, and social interpretation in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It reflects my interest in interpretive practices, reader response, and how meaning is constructed through social frameworks.
This essay examines how Gerard Manley Hopkins’s use of sound, rhythm, and poetic form shapes reader perception and interpretive experience. Focusing on sprung rhythm and instress, it reflects an early interest in how aesthetic form mediates attention, guides recognition, and trains readers in particular modes of reading.
This essay analyzes Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” through feminist and posthumanist theory, with particular attention to how platform and publication context shape reader engagement. These questions continue to inform my current interest in reader response and social reading practices.
Interdisciplinary Research Writing
This literature review synthesizes peer-reviewed research on gastrointestinal conditions and Autism Spectrum Disorder. It reflects my experience in scientific and medical research writing, including evaluating methodologies, synthesizing empirical findings, and maintaining evidentiary caution.
Afton Northrup 