Beth Boyens, Ph.D., M.A.
Beth Boyens, Ph.D., M.A.
Associate Professor of English; Director of First-Year Seminar (FYS)
English & Journalism Department
Education
Ph.D. in Literary Studies, 2014, University of South Dakota; M.A. in Literary Studies, 1998, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee; B.A. in English & Secondary Education, 1990, Augustana College
Biography
An Augustana alumna, Dr. Beth Boyens has been teaching foundational courses in literature and composition since she joined the English department in 2000. She has taught a course on wandering in the First-Year Seminar (FYS) program since its start in 2016, and currently serves as the director of FYS. Additionally, she teaches Advanced Writing, Global Literature, Young Adult literature, trauma literature, and an interim course which considers literary depictions of diseased and traumatized bodies. She also co-leads a spring break study abroad experience to Scotland with Dr. Janet Blank-Libra. Boyens’s research area is nineteenth-century American women’s literature; her other areas of interest include multicultural literature, regionalism, gender studies, and trauma studies. She has presented at the American Literature Association, the Midwest Modern Language Association, and the Northeast Modern Language Association conferences, among others.