Assistant Professor, Seattle University

Faculty Profile | Serena Chopra

For a full Curriculum Vitae, please send your request to Serena.R.Chopra@gmail.com

Teaching and Research Interests

My pedagogical approach historiographically and cross-disciplinarily contextualizes writing/creative-vision, poetics and theory in order to engage students with inspired lineages and a contemporary scope for their critical and creative work. I believe that invested readers make invested writers, and that evolving within the art of writing means to grapple with previous explorations of craft, content, vision and aesthetics. Rather than emphasizing rules towards technical perfection, I guide students through their own poetic and visionary concerns, concentrating on strengthening creativity, voice and critical perspectives. I encourage students to engage multi-disciplinary experiments and practices, guiding them to encounter their creative visions as dynamic, expressive potential.

  • Poetry and Poetics
  • Memoir and Hybrid Texts
  • Trauma and Grief Writing
  • Creative Writing Workshop
  • Women’s, Gender and Queer Studies
  • Queer Poetics and Studies in Marginalization
  • Documentary Poetics
  • Interdisciplinary and Performance Studies
  • Modernism and Postmodernism
  • Historiography of Poetic Theory and Thought
  • Critical Theory

 

Education and Fellowships

PhD, Creative Writing and English Literature, University of Denver, June 2018

MacDowell Fellow, Stanford Calderwood Fellow,  2022

Fulbright Scholar, 2016-2017

Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Denver, 2012-2015

Kundiman Fellow, 2010

MFA, English, Creative Writing, University of Colorado at Boulder, May 2009

B.A., English, Creative Writing, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2006

 

Teaching Positions

  • Assistant Professor, Seattle University, 2019-Present
  • Faculty, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Denver, 2018-Present
    • Leads courses in Poetry, Non Fiction, Memoir and Hybrid Forms
  • Adjunct Faculty, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics,  Naropa University, 2015-2019
  • Faculty, Summer Writing Program, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University, 2016, 2018
  • Faculty, Young Writers Workshop, University of Virginia, 2015
  • Graduate Instructor, University of Denver, August 2013-2015
  • Assistant to the Director of Creative Writing, Selah Saterstrom, Autumn 2014
  • Assistant to the Director of Creative Writing, Eleni Sikelianos, Autumn 2012
  • Affiliate Faculty, Metropolitan State College of Denver, August 2010-2012
  • Adjunct Faculty, Community College of Denver, August 2010-2012
  • Graduate Instructor, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2006-2009

 

Graduate Teaching Experience

  • Queer Literature and Poetics, Naropa University, Spring 2021
  • Small Press Publishing (Bombay Gin Publishing Course), Naropa University, Fall 2018
  • Women, Trans and Non-Gender Binary Writers: An Examination of Narrative, (Auto)Biography, Form and Becoming, Naropa University, Spring 2018
  • MFA Thesis Director, Naropa University, Fall and Spring 2016-2017
  • Sound, Atmosphere and the Avant Garde, Independent Study, Naropa University, Spring 2017
  • Making a Manuscript, Independent Study, Naropa University, Fall 2016
  • Black Feminist Theory, Independent Study, Naropa University, Spring 2016
  • Composing the Novel, Independent Study, Naropa University, Spring 2016
  • Poetics Seminar: Critical Theory, Naropa University, Fall 2015
  • Poetry Workshop: Documentary Poetics, Naropa University, Fall 2015
  • Writers In the Community Seminar, Naropa University, Fall 2015

 

Undergraduate Teaching Experience

  • Lesbian and Transgender Poetry, Seattle University
  • Writing Grief, Seattle University
  • From Cells to Galaxies, Decay to Escape, Cries of Refusal & Resistance: Exploring the Erotic Poetics of Wild Sound, Honors Program, Artistic Innovators track, Seattle University
  • The Feminist Epic, Seattle University
  • Queer Experiences and Poetic Memoir, Seattle University
  • Hybrid & Interdisciplinary Poetry, Seattle University
  • Historiography of Modern, Post Modern and Contemporary Poetics, Seattle University
  • Documentary Poetry, Seattle University
  • Introduction to Creative Writing, Seattle University
  • Writers in the Community: Seminar and Workshop, Naropa University, Fall 2018
  • Innovative Poetry Workshop: Examining 20th Century Poetry and Poetics, Naropa University, Spring 2018
  • Pagan Writing and Performance, Independent Study, Naropa University, Spring 2016
  • The Art of Poetry: Poets, Poetry and Poetics, University of Denver, Fall 2015
  • Poetry Workshop, University of Denver, 2015
  • Introduction to Creative Writing Workshop, University of Denver, 2013-2014
  • Intermediate Poetry Workshop, Boulder Writing Studio, 2011-2013
  • The Art and Craft of Writing: Poetry, Fiction, and Playwriting, Metropolitan State College, 2011-2012
  • Freshman Composition 2: Analysis, Research, and Documentation, Metropolitan State College, 2010-2012
  • Freshman Composition 1: The Essay, Metropolitan State College, 2010-2012
  • Developmental Composition, Community College of Denver, 2010-2011
  • Introduction to Poetry Workshop, University of Colorado, 2006-2009
  • Introduction to Creative Writing, University of Colorado, 2006-2009

 

Other Teaching Experience

  • Colorization Collective, Teaching Artist, 2022-Present
    • Instructing teen artists of color in poetry
  • Belladonna* Collective School, “Rampage, Wound and Chthonic Desire: Feminism, Goddess Complexes and New Multivalent Narrative,” March 12-April 23rd, 2021
  • Lighthouse Writing in Color Retreat, Hybrid Forms Faculty, Allenspark, CO, August 2019, August 2020, August 2021
  • Grand Lake Lighthouse Writers Retreat, Poetry Faculty, Grand Lake, CO, July 2019, July 2020, July 2021
  • Divinations and Disorientations MFA Retreat, Naropa University at Shambhala Mountain Center, 2019
  • Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Faculty, Denver, 2018-Present
  • Narrative as Becoming, Founder, Bangalore, India 2016-2017
    • Founded and ran creative writing and hybrid creations workshops for queer women and tansmen. Sessions explored narrative as a mode of empowerment, subversion, testimonial and personal mythology.
  • Young Writers Workshop, University of Virginia, Poetry Faculty 2015
  • Boulder Writing Studio, Faculty, Spring 2011-2013
  • Writers in the Schools (WITS), December 2010-2012

 

Visiting Artist/Lecturer Positions

  • RCAH Center for Poetry at Michigan State University, Fall 2021
  • Colorization Collective, Teaching Artist, 2022-Present
  • Denver School of the Arts, Guest Artist Series, Spring 2021
    • workshops: On Writing Lyric Essay, On Writing Poetic Memoir
  • Divination and Disorientation: Practices in Chance-Encounter, Divination and Experimentation, Performance Studies Department, Naropa University, Spring 2019
  • Silent Retreat for Writing Performance at the Shambhala Mountain Center, Performance Studies Department, Naropa University, Spring 2019
  • Scripting the Self: Narrative and Performativity, Performative Studies Department, Naropa University, Fall 2018

 

Recent Guest Lectures

  • “The Ephemeral Artifact,” Four Queens’ Creative Writing and Divinatory Poetics Hour, April 16th, 2023
  • “Rampage, Wound and Cthonic Desires: A Mythological Complex for the Feminist Poetic Line,” Naropa University Summer Writing Program, Boulder, June 17, 2019
  • “Towards Post Post-Colonialism, A Theory of Rhizomic Intelligence and Activism,” Naropa University Summer Writing Program, Boulder, June 25, 2018
  • “Rhizomic Activism, Queer Women and Narrative in India,” University of Denver, Denver, February 22, 2018
  • “Rhizomic Activism: A Post-Post-Colonialism,” The Warhawk Reading and Lecture Series, University of Wisconsin Whitewater, December 7, 2017
  • “Beyond the Beyond: Post-Colonial Hybridities/Queer Bodies in Queer Spaces,” Christ University, Bangalore, India, June 2017
  • “Phenomenology in Modernist Poetry: How Poems Appear–Some Theories by Modernist Poets,” Christ University, Bangalore, India, June 2017
  • “Stop Making Sense: The What, Why and How of Experimental Poetry,” Christ University, Bangalore, Indian, May 2017
  • “Queer Invisibility and Performance of LBT Indian Women in the Rhizome,” South Central Asia Fulbright Conference, March 2017
  • “Invisibility as Queer Poetics,” Naropa University, Boulder, July 4, 2016

 

Committees

  • Teaching Inclusively Committee, Fall 2021-Present
  • Women and Gender Studies Executive Committee, Fall 2021-Present
  • Student Outreach Committee, Fall 2020-Present
  • Creative Writing Program Committee, Fall 2019-Present

 

Editorial Positions

  • Foglifter, Guest Editor, Volume 2, Issue 5, Fall 2020
  • Denver Quarterly, Editorial Assistant, University of Denver, 2013-2015
  • TitMouse Magazine, Co-Founder/Editor, Denver, 2010-2012
  • Spine Road Literary Journal, Editor, Denver, 2010-2012
  • The New Press, Editorial Intern, New York City, 2009-2010
  • Subito Press, Editor, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2008