Augusta Funk

Headshot in a sunlit outdoor space.
she/her
316 Voorhies
Office Hours
M 10am - 11am
W 4pm - 5pm
Bio

Biography

PhD Candidate, UC Davis 2021 - Present

M.F.A in Poetry, University of Michigan, 2019

B.A. in English, Macalester College, 2014

Research Interests

I work at the intersections of contemporary poetics, critical race and ethnicity studies, the environmental humanities, and writing studies. My research considers how writing's material poiesis has been theorized by women and queer-of-color poets in their search for alternative forms of political agency and belonging. 

Fields of Interest

Primary: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies, Inhuman Geographies and Environmental Humanities 

Secondary: Queer and Feminist Theory, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Black Studies

Presentations

  • "Shoals, Shimmers, Flesh: Black Feminism’s Atmospheric Archive in M. NourbSe Philip’s Zong!" ASLE 2025 Biennial Conference, College Park ME July 2025
  • "Muriel Ruekyser's Recorded Silence: The Politics of the Poetry Reading" Uncommon Senses V Montreal, Quebec May 2025
  • "The Anti-Anti Lyric: Reading Abolition Beyond the Human in Gwendolyn Brooks's 'In the Mecca'" ASLE 2023 Biennial Conference, Portland OR July 2023
  • "Landscapes of Cohabitation in Hannah Weiner's Clairvoyant Journal" 2022 ASAP/13, Los Angeles CA September 2022

Publications

Honors and Awards

  • Dean's Summer Fellowship, UC Davis 2024
  • David Noel Miller Prize for Best Critical Essay, UC Davis 2022
  • Zell Fellowship, University of Michigan, 2019 and 2017

Teaching

  • ENL3, UC Davis Fall 2024 - Present
  • UWP1Y, UC Davis Fall 2023 - Spring 2024
  • UWP1, UC Davis Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
  • TA, UC Davis ENL180, ENL130, and ENL185C Fall 2021 - Spring 2022
  • ENL 225, University of Michigan Spring 2019
  • ENL 125, University of Michigan Fall 2018
  • Peer Writing Tutor, Macalester College Fall 2011-Spring 2014