Michelle Sizemore

Director

Michelle Sizemore is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Gaines Center for the Humanities. Her research focuses on the irrational features of democracy in late-eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century U.S. literature and culture. She is the author of American Enchantment: Rituals of the People in the Post-Revolutionary World (Oxford University Press, 2018) and is currently completing her second book, Feel-Bad Patriotism, which examines the antagonistic feelings and reformist political work of patriotism in nineteenth-century fictions of revolution. She teaches literature courses on a range of topics and time periods, most recently a class on "Democracy's Stories," a class on censorship called “Reading Dangerously,“ and a class on Homer's Odyssey and its adaptations called "Gods & Monsters."

Before joining Gaines, Michelle served as Director of the Lunsford Scholars Program in the College of Arts & Sciences and as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the English Department.

Education:

• Ph.D., University of Wisconsin – English
• M.A., University of Wisconsin – English
• B.A., University of Kentucky – English Major, History Minor

Recent Publications:

"Israel Potter, Patriot Refugee." Forthcoming in NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction. 59.3 (2026).

"Belligerent Patriotism: 1776, 1826, 2026." Forthcoming in Early American Literature. 61.3 (2026).