About
Katie Brandt Sartain holds an MA in English literature from San Francisco State University (2017) and is currently a doctoral candidate (ABD) in critical English studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was chosen as a Resident Graduate Scholar at the UIC Institute for the Humanities for 2024-2025, an Institute for Humane Studies (George Mason University) fellow for 2024-2025, a HASTAC Scholars 2025-2026 cohort inductee, and was awarded an Honorable Mention for the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Emerging Scholars prize. Her work has been published in Victorian Popular Fictions Journal and featured on both The Dickens Society Blog and The Dickens Project Audio Podcast. Her dissertation, Addictive Practices: Realism and Substance Use in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel, focuses on the construction of the addicted subject in the nineteenth-century novel and how the conventions and form of the Victorian novel are reliant on themes of addiction. Education
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (August 2019-present)
Candidate, ABD, Doctor of Philosophy, Critical English Studies, GPA 4.0
Expected graduation date: Spring 2026
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA (August 2015-July 2017)
Master of Arts, English Literature, GPA 4.0
Thesis: “Uneasy Corners of Consciousness”: Addiction as Dis-ease in Victorian Realism (2017)
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (August 2008-May 2011)
Bachelor of Arts, English, GPA 3.82, Cum Laude, College Honors
Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL (August 2007-May 2008)
Courses in Elementary and Special Education, GPA 3.34 Publications
“‘Reader, the violence they did’: Employing Metalepsis Towards a Collective Narrative in the Historical Novel.” The Journal of Historical Fictions, 2025. (Accepted pending revision).
“’A Deeper-lying Consciousness’: Lydgate’s Descent into Gambling and Narcotics.” George Eliot’s Unfortunate Men. Vernon Press, 2025. (Forthcoming).
“‘To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale!’: Endo/Exo-Writer Perspectives of Nineteenth-Century Sex Workers in Madeleine, An Autobiography and Mary Barton.” Victorian Popular Fictions, 5.1: 142-57, 5 July 2023. ISSN: 2632-4253 (online) DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46911/GUIL7181
“Uneasy Corners of Consciousness”: Addiction as Dis-ease in Victorian Realism. 2017. San Francisco State University, Master of Arts Thesis.
https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/v405sb987.
“‘The Golden Thread’: Uniting Benjamin and Dickens Through Death and Memory.” Interpretations 28, 2016: 42-65.
Projects
The Endo/Exo Writers Project: Computing Class in U.S. and U.K. Novels, 1880-1940. Led by Dr. Lennard J. Davis. Graduate Researcher (February 2021-November 2024)
Upcoming Talks and Conferences
“‘Write for writing’s sake, only to make money’: The Death of the Victorian Novel(ist) in New Grub Street.” 46th Annual Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference held at the Sheraton New Orleans: March 2025. Memberships
Modern Language Association, Midwest Modern Language Association, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association, Northeastern Modern Language Association, Southwest Popular/American Culture Association, The Dickens Society, International Association of Professional Writers and Editors, Institute for Humane Studies, Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, Society for the Social History of Medicine, Midwest Victorian Studies Association, The Thomas Hardy Society, Society for Novel Studies, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, HASTAC Scholars
