Bio
Madeline Olley is a newly appointed Lecturer in English. She completed her PhD in English through Syracuse University in June 2026. Her dissertation is entitled “Marble Bodies: Sculpture, Gender, Race, and Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature,” which develops sculpture as a reading practice and shows how sculptors and statues helped shape the field of early American literature. Her first publication is forthcoming (Dec. 2026) in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers. Her research interests include early U.S. literature, visual and material culture, gender studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and indigenous studies.
She brings experience teaching English at Syracuse University (courses include Reading Popular Culture, Introduction to the Novel, Gender and Literary Texts, and Survey of American Literature, 1865-Present). Outside of the university, she brings industry experience in grant writing and business development, and she looks forward to using that real-world experience to support ISU students in courses such as Proposal and Report Writing and Technical Communication. Outside of teaching and scholarship, she spends most of her time playing with her two children, Layla (3) and Markus (1), husband Luke, and dog Lenny.