Nora Teikmanis
Nora TeikmanisNora Teikmanis (PhD, Comparative Literature, Graduate Center of the City University of New York; MA, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Boston University; BA, English, Vassar College) is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature. She has taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Japan, and EFL/ ESL at Boston University, Harvard University’s Summer School, Nassau Community College, and Adelphi University. She draws on a background in language acquisition in teaching literature and tailoring writing instruction. Her research interests include nineteenth century European novel and drama, contemporary memoir and testimony, and literary exile. She is presently revising a book manuscript titled, “Turning from Violence to Love: Dostoevsky and the European Novel,” in which she draws on the theoretical work of René Girard, Emmanuel Levinas, and Julia Kristeva. Plans for future research include work on innovative Latvian modernist poets, Gunars Salins and Linards Tauns, associated with New York’s “Hell’s Kitchen” in the 1950s and 60s.
Teikmanis teaches introductory courses in global literature as well as European novel and Russian literature in translation. She is interested in questions about human conflict, the origins of human suffering, and the routes that lead to and away from violence. When presented in 2005 with the President’s Award for Best Teaching by Adjunct Faculty at Queens College, she was praised as a charismatic “Master Teacher.”