Gillian Paku received her PhD from Harvard University and began teaching at 黑料传送门 in 2008. She teaches courses primarily in 18th-century literature and literary disability studies, and has published articles for Oxford University Press Handbooks Online and Eighteenth-Century Life. She received the SUNY Chancellor鈥檚 Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2013, the 2023 Academic Affairs award for Outstanding Commitment to Learning, the 2021 and 2024 Student Association Professor Recognition award, the 2012-2013 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Innovative Course Design Prize, and a Folger Institute / American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship in 2008.
Paku recently chaired the college working group on an antiracist writing curriculum, is the faculty sponsor for of the Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society, and in 2025 was selected for the inaugural cohort of the SUNY Accessibility Advocates & Allies Faculty Fellowship program.
Classes
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ENGL 427: Lit Representations-Disability
A study of selected works seen within the context of disability studies.
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WRTG 105: Wrtg: Academic Ableism
This course lays the foundation for students to participate insightfully in both written and oral academic conversations. The course focuses on three modes of written and oral communication: communication as an ongoing persuasive dialogue with multiple audiences, communication with a reflective self, and communication with a dynamic evolving text. The course also introduces elements of information literacy and critical thinking needed to develop and evaluate academic conversation. Writing Seminar is typically taken by new students in their first two semesters, often as the introduction to general education, to our library, and to academic support services as sites of collaboration rather than remediation. As many new students' only seminar-style class, Writing Seminar can help lay the foundations of not only academic but also social success.