Hannah LeClair
Hannah LeClair specializes in nineteenth-century literature, with a focus on the relationship between media, visual culture, and literary form. Her current project studies landscape, setting, and the afterlife of picturesque aesthetics in the Victorian realist novel.
After completing her B.A. at Bard College, Hannah received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. She was the recipient of a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2023-2024.
Before joining the faculty at Ursinus College, Hannah taught courses in the environmental humanities, literary theory, intellectual history, and gender and sexuality studies at Penn and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Previously, she worked in secondary education, publishing, and as an English-language teaching assistant employed by the Ministère de l’Éducation nationale in France.
Hannah regularly reviews contemporary poetry and fiction. Her writing appears in Jacket2, Music & Literature, and Asymptote Online.
Department
Teaching
- Writing Nature, Writing the Self (The Environment in Literature)
- Stories from Home (Intro Topics in World Literature)
- The Common Intellectual Experience
Research Interests
- Romanticism
- Victorian Studies
- Environmental Humanities
- Aesthetics and Visual Culture
Recent Work
Publications
“On the Hardy Tree, or Living Form: Aesthetics, Infrastructure, and the Gothic,” The Hardy Society Journal (Summer 2024).
Presentations
“Hardy’s Visualities: Text and Image in Under the Greenwood Tree.” American Comparative Literature Association 2024 Conference, Montréal, Canada. (March 2024)
“‘My find; my piece-work’: Feminist Poetics in Conversation with Dorothy Wordsworth.” ACLA 2023 Conference, Chicago, IL. (March 2023)
“‘Ruined lands in every shire’: Landscape, Property, and the Picturesque in Bleak House.” North American Victorian Studies Association 2022 Conference, Bethlehem, PA. (September 2022)
“Dutch Paintings, Description, and Realist Form: Hardy’s Pictorialism in Under the Greenwood Tree.” 25th International Thomas Hardy Conference and Festival. Dorchester, UK. (July 2022)
“Romantic Roots and Realist Experiments in George Eliot’s Early Fiction.” Nineteenth Century Studies Association 2022 Conference, Rochester, NY. (March 2022)
