Ph.D., Indiana University; English
Associate Professor

Professor Berg's research focuses on twentieth-century American literature and culture, with an emphasis on African American literature and on issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality. She has published articles on William Faulkner, Pauline Hopkins, Marita Bonner, the Harlem Renaissance, and contemporary film. Her book Mothering the Race: Women's Narratives of Reproduction, 1890-1930 (University of Illinois Press, 2002) examines African American and white women's novels about motherhood in the context of racial uplift, feminist, birth control, and eugenics movements. Her most recent publications focus on the scholarship of teaching and include: “Grade Less, Teach More: Overcoming Student Resistance to Collaborative Paper Assignments” in How to Handle the Paper Load (National Council of Teachers of English, 2005) and “Integrating Writing and Literature Outside the English Department: African American Literature at a College of Public Affairs” in Integrating Writing and Literature in First-Year English (Modern Language Association, 2005). Her current research focuses on literature of the civil rights movement. Professor Berg was awarded a University Lilly Teaching Fellowship for 1999-2000. She is the current faculty director of the JMC Writing Consultancy.