Dr. Karen Dieleman

Professor of English


Phone: (905) 648-2131   Ext:2436

Email: kdieleman@redeemer.ca

Programs: English Literature, English Writing

Education

Ph.D. (2006), English, McMaster University. Dissertation: Women, Worship, and Writing: The Religious Poetics of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti and Adelaide Procter

M.A. (2001), English, McMaster University

Honours B.A. (2000), English, McMaster University

Diploma of Teaching (1988), Covenant Canadian Reformed Teachers College

Courses

  • Ways of Reading: Poetry and Drama (ENG-104)
  • Expository Writing I (ENG-201)
  • Western Culture & Tradition II (HUM-120)
  • Nineteenth-Century English Literature I: Romantic (ENG-345)
  • Nineteenth-Century English Literature II: Victorian (ENG-346)
  • Core Capstone Experience (CTS-410)

About

After ten years of teaching at a sister institution near Chicago, Karen Dieleman returned to Ancaster to serve in academic administration and as a professor of English at Redeemer. Having completed a term in administration, she continues to teach in both the English program and Redeemer’s core program. Her scholarship focuses on Victorian poetry’s intersections with religion and theology. Within that field, she has published on poetry and liturgy, evolutionary thought, social reform, and interpretations of creation. She is presently writing on theologies of work in Victorian poetry and culture.

Research Interests

  • Victorian poetry, poetic form, liturgy, evolutionary thought, theologies of creation
  • Victorian women poets, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Adelaide Procter, Emily Pfeiffer, and Alice Meynell
  • British and American Romanticism
  • The British novel
  • The art of the essay

Recent/Significant Publications

“From Grass to Galaxy: Alice Meynell’s Poetic Wayfaring in the Meshwork of the World.” Christian Environmentalism and Human Responsibility in the 21st Century: Questions of Stewardship and Accountability, edited by Katherine M. Quinsey, Routledge, 2023, 108-126.

“Ecotheological Relationships in Elizabeth Barrett’s ‘A Drama of Exile.’” Christianity & Literature 69.3 (September 2020): 418-438.

“Aurora Leigh in the Netherlands, 1870-1900.” BRANCH (Britain, Representation, and Nineteenth-Century History), edited by Dino Franco Felluga, extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. October 2018.

“Transport and Anxiety over the Music of the Future: Swinburne and Pfeiffer on Wagner’s Lohengrin Prelude.” Victorian Review 44.2 (Fall 2018).

“Evolution and the Struggle of Love in Emily Pfeiffer’s Sonnets.” Victorian Poetry 54:3 (Fall 2016). 297-324. doi: 10.1353/vp.2016.0014.

“Sacramental Memorializing: Upon the Death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 37.3 (May 2015): 215-31. doi: 10.1080/08905495.2015.1043037.

Religious Imaginaries: The Liturgical and Poetic Practices of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti and Adelaide Procter. Ohio University Press, 2012.

Related Experience

Interim Associate Provost, Trinity Christian College, Fall 2018.

Area Chair of Humanities, Trinity Christian College, 2014-2018.

Chair of English, Trinity Christian College, 2013-2018.