Document
Elysia Balavage
Position
Name
Elysia Balavage
Candidate statement
Anisfield-Wolf Fellow, Case Western Reserve University
Candidate Statement:
One way or another, precarity is going to haunt most of us into the rather indefinite future. As someone who has been a contingent faculty member for the past six years, my career bifurcated between three years as a lecturer at UNC-Greensboro and another three as a Case Western Reserve University teaching fellow, I understand the persistent needs of precarious laborers. Balancing high teaching loads, research, administrative work, short-term contracts, and (dare I say) mental and emotional health is an exercise in compulsory dexterity.
I am committed to advocating for contingent faculty, as my talks on both the “New Precarity” panel at MSA 2024 and the CCIS-sponsored Zoom roundtable, “The New Precarity: A Manifesto in the Making” demonstrate. I am also no stranger to coordinating and creating content such as guest lectures, panels, and seminars. For MSA conferences, I have organized two panels and one
peer seminar over the past few years. At my current institution, I have arranged guest lectures for the campus community, facilitated symposia, and participated on university committees.
As it stands, most of the MSA membership are also members of the precariat, and I’d be grateful to represent us. There is certainly no shortage of work to do.
Publications:
“Class and Consumption: George Orwell and the Desecration of Bread in The Road to Wigan
Pier.” English Studies, 106.2 (January 2025), 168–184.
“‘Nothingness in All Directions’: Modernism, Sci-Fi, and Radiant Space.” Modernism/Modernity
Print Plus, Volume 6, Cycle 3 (16 May 2022).
“Divinity and Nihilism in W. B. Yeats’s A Vision.” The Review of English Studies, 73.310 (June
2022), 568-581.
“Illumination, Transformation, and Nihilism: T. S. Eliot’s Empty Spaces.” Journal of Modern
Literature, 44.3 (Spring 2021), 35-48.
Candidate Statement:
One way or another, precarity is going to haunt most of us into the rather indefinite future. As someone who has been a contingent faculty member for the past six years, my career bifurcated between three years as a lecturer at UNC-Greensboro and another three as a Case Western Reserve University teaching fellow, I understand the persistent needs of precarious laborers. Balancing high teaching loads, research, administrative work, short-term contracts, and (dare I say) mental and emotional health is an exercise in compulsory dexterity.
I am committed to advocating for contingent faculty, as my talks on both the “New Precarity” panel at MSA 2024 and the CCIS-sponsored Zoom roundtable, “The New Precarity: A Manifesto in the Making” demonstrate. I am also no stranger to coordinating and creating content such as guest lectures, panels, and seminars. For MSA conferences, I have organized two panels and one
peer seminar over the past few years. At my current institution, I have arranged guest lectures for the campus community, facilitated symposia, and participated on university committees.
As it stands, most of the MSA membership are also members of the precariat, and I’d be grateful to represent us. There is certainly no shortage of work to do.
Publications:
“Class and Consumption: George Orwell and the Desecration of Bread in The Road to Wigan
Pier.” English Studies, 106.2 (January 2025), 168–184.
“‘Nothingness in All Directions’: Modernism, Sci-Fi, and Radiant Space.” Modernism/Modernity
Print Plus, Volume 6, Cycle 3 (16 May 2022).
“Divinity and Nihilism in W. B. Yeats’s A Vision.” The Review of English Studies, 73.310 (June
2022), 568-581.
“Illumination, Transformation, and Nihilism: T. S. Eliot’s Empty Spaces.” Journal of Modern
Literature, 44.3 (Spring 2021), 35-48.
Candidate CV