Flora Armetta, Ph.D.

I love teaching, and I enjoy giving students material that not only challenges but interests them, to prompt a genuine critical response. I often ask students to bring their own assignment ideas or reading suggestions in to class, so that they have the same opportunities as I do to invest in a given course. My ultimate goal is for students to reach the point where they can comfortably read, think through, talk about, and write about a given subject on their own. I want my students to engage with literature as fully as they can, respond to it thoughtfully and critically, and find ways to express those responses articulately and meaningfully. And I hope they discover that this process is more than useful – it’s a pleasure.

Flora Armetta earned her Ph.D. in English Literature at Columbia University, where she taught Great Books and composition courses for several years. She holds an M.A. in Theatre and B.A.s in Art History and Theatre, and she's a former lecturer at The Cloisters and The Metropolitan Museum of Art and a former Galleries and Events editor for American Arts Quarterly. Her research focuses on intersections between nineteenth-century narrative and artistic practice, and she has written on both Victorian and contemporary art and literature for publications including The New Yorker, American Arts Quarterly, Victorian Network, North Wind, and the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism. Her work is also featured in a new book from Palgrave Macmillan, titled John Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Religious Imagination: Sacre Conversazioni. Before teaching at Central Penn, she was Assistant Professor of Arts and Humanities at the City University of New York.