April Patrick

April Patrick

Associate Professor of Literature,
Department of Literature, Language, Writing, and Humanities

University Director of Honors

CONTACT INFORMATION

Location:
Florham Campus: Monninger Center, suite 222
Metro Campus: Robison Hall, suite 37

Courses

• Health and Healing
• Hacking the Humanities
• British Writers
• Intro to Medical Humanities
• Women Poets and the Poetic Tradition
• Young Adult Literature

Research

• Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine
• Digital Humanities
• Periodical studies
• British and American literature of the long 19th century
• Women’s and Gender Studies Poetry

Education

• BA, English and Secondary Education, Schreiner University
• MA, English and Women’s Studies, University of Houston
• PhD, English, and Women’s Studies, Texas Christian University

Academic Profile

Dr. Patrick teaches classes in medical humanities, digital humanities, British literature, women’s writing, and children’s and young adult literature in addition to directing University Honors across FDU. Her book Women’s Health in Britain and America: Texts and Contexts (Palgrave, 2023) considers women’s experiences with pregnancy and childbirth, abortion and contraception, and breast and uterine cancer. Her writing has also appeared in Victorian Periodicals Review, Victorian Review, and Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, as well as the edited collection ‘Medicine, Health, and Being Human’. Dr. Patrick is a Co-Editor of the Periodical Poetry Index, a digital humanities resource that indexes poetry from nineteenth-century magazines and newspapers and frequently involves undergraduate students in the work for that project.

Dr. Patrick’s current research analyzes the development of discourse around women’s wellness by considering how gendered social expectations, ecofeminist approaches to health, plus print culture were influenced by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific, and technological advances. Through an in-depth exploration of global anglophone periodicals for women, she highlights ways print media addresses women about their health, comparing those messages with scientific knowledge from medical textbooks and journals of the same period.

Before coming to FDU in 2014, Dr. Patrick taught high school and college in Texas, oversaw the literacy initiatives for an educational nonprofit in NYC, and worked in corporate marketing and innovation.