Augusta Funk

Headshot in a sunlit outdoor space.
she/her
316 Voorhies
Office Hours
On fellowship for the 2026-27 academic year
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 am a poet, scholar, and PhD candidate a working at the intersections of modern and contemporary poetry and poetics, cultural and aesthetic theory, and language politics. My research considers the reparative turn in contemporary North American poetry by way of procedural, somatic, and more-than-human materialities. 

Fields of Interest

Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies, Queer and Feminist Theory, Psychoanalysis, Black Studies, Inhuman Geographies

Presentations

  • "Shoals, Shimmers, Flesh: Citational Performances in M. NourbSe Philip’s Zong!" ASAP/17, Madison WI October 2026
  • "Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Earth Time: Maternal Writing in Dictée" ASLE 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

  • Russel J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Educational Dissertation Fellowship, UC Davis 2026
  • 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