Contact Information
Biography
Dr. Rebecca Maatta has been with 51°µĶų since 2015 as a Teaching Associate Professor in the English & Theater Arts department. She teaches first-year writing courses as well as writing-intensive classes in the health humanities including Healthcare & Literature, Anatomy & the Archive, and Nursing & Narrative. She also co-teaches the Anatomy sequence with faculty in the Physical Therapy Department.
Dr. Rebecca Maatta has been the recipient of the following awards:
- John G. Rangos Prize, with Anne Burrows & Ben Kivlan, internal grant to create campus memorial garden for human body donors (Spring 2023)
- Presidential Scholarship Award in Teaching, with Anne Burrows, Department of Physical Therapy (Spring 2022)
- President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Spring 2021)
- McAnulty College & Graduate School of Liberal Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching (Spring 2021)
- Creative Teaching Award (Spring 2021)
Education
- Ph.D., Literary and Cultural Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, 2009
- M.A., Literary and Cultural Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, 2002
- B.A., English and Creative Writing, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001
Profile Information
- ENGL 115C: Mental Illness & Literature
- ENGL 251W: Nursing and Narrative
- ENGL 306W: Anatomy & The Archive
- ENGL 316W: Healthcare and Literature
- ENGL 318: British Literature II
- BRDG 101: Writing & Analysis
- BRDG 102: Literature & Writing
Co-Instructor
- HLTS 320-321/470: Anatomy I & II
- PHYT 435/535W: Psychology of Illness and Disability
āāWhen the dreadful steel was plunged into the breastā: Teaching Romantic Surgeons,
Anatomists, and Bodysnatchers to Students in Health Sciences,ā Romantic Circles Pedagogy
Commons special issue on Romanticism, teaching, and wellbeing (accepted).
āTeaching with the Archive when the Archive Shuts Down,ā Essays in Romanticism, vol. 28, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-126
As Rebecca E. May: āTracking the Unruly Cadaver: Dracula and Victorian Coronersā Reports,ā Bram Stoker and the Late-Victorian World, edited by Matthew Gibson and Sabine Muller, Clemson University Press in conjunction with Liverpool University Press, 2019, pp. 121-146.
As Rebecca E. May: āāThis shattered prisonā: Bodily Dissolution, Wuthering Heights and Joseph Macliseās Dissection Manuals.ā Nineteenth-Century Contexts 33.5 (2011): 415-436.
As Rebecca E. May: āMorbid Parts: Gender, Seduction and the Necro-Gaze,ā Sexual Perversions, 1670-1890. Ed. Julie Peakman. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. pp. 167-201.
āTeaching with the Archive when the Archive Shuts Down,ā Essays in Romanticism, vol. 28, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113-126
As Rebecca E. May: āTracking the Unruly Cadaver: Dracula and Victorian Coronersā Reports,ā Bram Stoker and the Late-Victorian World, edited by Matthew Gibson and Sabine Muller, Clemson University Press in conjunction with Liverpool University Press, 2019, pp. 121-146.
As Rebecca E. May: āāThis shattered prisonā: Bodily Dissolution, Wuthering Heights and Joseph Macliseās Dissection Manuals.ā Nineteenth-Century Contexts 33.5 (2011): 415-436.
As Rebecca E. May: āMorbid Parts: Gender, Seduction and the Necro-Gaze,ā Sexual Perversions, 1670-1890. Ed. Julie Peakman. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. pp. 167-201.
āMedical humanities pedagogy in the cadaver lab: using narrative to promote empathy
and metacognition,ā with Anne Burrows, American Association for Anatomy, Washington
DC, March 2023.
āWhatās a Victorianist Like You Doing in a Cadaver Lab Like This?ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, March 2022.
āFrom Dissertation Defense to Womenās Shelter in Eight Weeks: Navigating Higher Ed with PTSD,ā Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Symposium, September 2021, virtual.
āStudents in Liberal Arts & the Health Sciences Design a Gallery Exhibit on the History of Anatomy,ā Bridges and Borders conference, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, April 2021, co-presentation with Thora P. Brylowe.
āEpidemiological Maps and the Death of Romanticism,ā accepted for the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Los Angeles, March 2020, and withdrawn due to COVID.
āTeaching Victorian Anatomists to Students in Health Sciences,ā Victorian Interdisciplinary Association of the Western United States, November 2019, Seattle, Washington.
āāThe very subject before usā¦the flies that haunt the places of dissectionā: Teaching Anatomical Knowledge Using Archival Illustrations,ā American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, March 2019, Denver, Colorado.
āāA gash in the universeā: Consumption and Annihilation in Poppy Z. Briteās āCalcutta, Lord of Nervesāā Midwest Modern Language Association, Kansas City, MO, November 2018.
āāIt was of unpainted deal, plain, strong, and scrupulously cleanā: The Victorian Autopsy Table and Tabulating Englandās Health,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, San Francisco, CA, March 2018.
āTracking the Unruly Cadaver: Dracula and Victorian Coronersā Reports,ā Midwest Modern Language Association, Cincinnati, OH, November 2017.
āVictorian Coronersā Reports, Form, and Fragments,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Muhlenberg College, March 2017.
āNatural History and the Unnatural Woman: Reframing Taxidermy as a New Womanās Art,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Appalachian State University, March 2016.
āāI went into my laboratory to plan murderā¦on the biggest scale it has ever been planned.ā: The Beetleās Sydney Atherton as Vivisector-Hero,ā English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities, Slippery Rock University, October, 2015.
āCork Legs and Steam Arms: Mechanical Surgery, and the Manufacture and Marketing of Artificial Limbs in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Georgia Institute of Technology, April 2015.
āBodies Yet Unknown: Gothic Literature, Vivisection, and the Physiological Sublime,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, University of Houston, March 2014.
āPrurient Didacticism?: The Social Life of Anatomical Specimens in Nineteenth-Century Britain,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, U Virginia, March 2013.
āJoseph Maclise and Nineteenth-Century Anatomical Illustration,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, U Kentucky, March 2012.
āJoseph Maclise and the Anatomical Arts Tradition,ā Pennsylvania Medical Humanities Consortium, Philadelphia, PA, May 2010.
āAlter the Body, Alter the Being: Vivisection as Intervention in The Island of Dr. Moreau,ā Pennsylvania Medical Humanities Consortium, Hershey, PA, May 2009.
āWhatās a Victorianist Like You Doing in a Cadaver Lab Like This?ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, March 2022.
āFrom Dissertation Defense to Womenās Shelter in Eight Weeks: Navigating Higher Ed with PTSD,ā Rhetoric of Health & Medicine Symposium, September 2021, virtual.
āStudents in Liberal Arts & the Health Sciences Design a Gallery Exhibit on the History of Anatomy,ā Bridges and Borders conference, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, April 2021, co-presentation with Thora P. Brylowe.
āEpidemiological Maps and the Death of Romanticism,ā accepted for the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Los Angeles, March 2020, and withdrawn due to COVID.
āTeaching Victorian Anatomists to Students in Health Sciences,ā Victorian Interdisciplinary Association of the Western United States, November 2019, Seattle, Washington.
āāThe very subject before usā¦the flies that haunt the places of dissectionā: Teaching Anatomical Knowledge Using Archival Illustrations,ā American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, March 2019, Denver, Colorado.
āāA gash in the universeā: Consumption and Annihilation in Poppy Z. Briteās āCalcutta, Lord of Nervesāā Midwest Modern Language Association, Kansas City, MO, November 2018.
āāIt was of unpainted deal, plain, strong, and scrupulously cleanā: The Victorian Autopsy Table and Tabulating Englandās Health,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, San Francisco, CA, March 2018.
āTracking the Unruly Cadaver: Dracula and Victorian Coronersā Reports,ā Midwest Modern Language Association, Cincinnati, OH, November 2017.
āVictorian Coronersā Reports, Form, and Fragments,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Muhlenberg College, March 2017.
āNatural History and the Unnatural Woman: Reframing Taxidermy as a New Womanās Art,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Appalachian State University, March 2016.
āāI went into my laboratory to plan murderā¦on the biggest scale it has ever been planned.ā: The Beetleās Sydney Atherton as Vivisector-Hero,ā English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities, Slippery Rock University, October, 2015.
āCork Legs and Steam Arms: Mechanical Surgery, and the Manufacture and Marketing of Artificial Limbs in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, Georgia Institute of Technology, April 2015.
āBodies Yet Unknown: Gothic Literature, Vivisection, and the Physiological Sublime,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, University of Houston, March 2014.
āPrurient Didacticism?: The Social Life of Anatomical Specimens in Nineteenth-Century Britain,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, U Virginia, March 2013.
āJoseph Maclise and Nineteenth-Century Anatomical Illustration,ā Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, U Kentucky, March 2012.
āJoseph Maclise and the Anatomical Arts Tradition,ā Pennsylvania Medical Humanities Consortium, Philadelphia, PA, May 2010.
āAlter the Body, Alter the Being: Vivisection as Intervention in The Island of Dr. Moreau,ā Pennsylvania Medical Humanities Consortium, Hershey, PA, May 2009.