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Vivian designs literature and writing courses that encourage students to treat writing as a recursive process sustained by our bodies, minds, and communities. Her teaching philosophy asserts that writing skills and rhetorical flexibility are best developed in a welcoming learning environment that prioritizes collaboration.

Vivian's courses explore American literature, feminist disability studies, race studies, dance, and the health humanities. Her primary research project argues that 19th-century women writers including Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Frances E.W. Harper used literature to supplement diagnostic ways of knowing and capture the raw potential of disabled embodiment. A dance instructor and disability justice advocate, Vivian serves the Diversity Action Group; REPAIR: A Health and Disability Justice Organization; and the Center for Accessible Education.

Education

UCLA, PhD, English 

UCLA, MA, English

Scripps College, BA, English, Minors: Dance and French

UCLA, Concentration Certificates, Gender Studies and Writing Pedagogy

Honors and Awards

• 2022, UCLA Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning Certificate
• 2021-2022, UCLA Collegium of University Teaching Fellowship
• 2021, Honorable Mention, Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers Best Paper Contest
• 2021, Mellon Excellence in Pedagogy and Innovative Classrooms Fellowship: Health & Medical Humanities
• 2020-2021, UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship
• 2019-2020, UCLA English Department Dissertation Year Fellowship
• 2017, Mellon Excellence in Pedagogy and Innovative Classrooms Fellowship: Inclusive Classrooms