About

Charlie Gleek is a scholar, writer, and teacher working at the interdisciplinary nexus of the History of the Book and literature from the American south. Charlie’s recent essays appear in The Chattahoochee Review and Penumbra: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Critical Inquiry.

Dr. Gleek’s book project Southern Fringes: Little Magazines, Larry Brown, and How Southern Literature Happens explores the vital role that materiality and paratext play in shaping narratives and their readers’ literary interpretations, thereby creating senses of southern literature which occur from situational encounters between objects, texts, and readers. He is also working on an additional project, tentatively titled “Reading Larry Brown,” which will examine how scholarly, commercial and popular readers synthesize Larry Brown’s writing towards cultivating feelings about southern literature in their respective interpretive communities.

Charlie earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Studies: Cultures, Languages, and Literatures from Florida Atlantic University and holds an Ed.D in Educational Leadership from Lynn University. He currently serves as an Instructor in the Department of English at Florida Atlantic University, teaching courses in literature and writing which focuses on the American south, working-class literature, and examining books as material and aesthetic objects.

Charlie’s teaching interests intersect across the following areas: American Literature and History, Anglophone World Literature and History, Artists’ Books and Book Arts, History of the Book and Print Culture, Literary and Cultural Studies, Multicultural Literature and History, New Southern Literature, Culture, and History, and Rhetoric and Composition. Charlie’s most recent teaching experience includes undergraduate courses in Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters’ Interdisciplinary Studies program, Department of English, Department of Comparative Languages, Linguistics, Literatures, and Department of History.

Before coming to academia, Charlie worked for over a decade as a landscaper on loading docks, warehouses, retail floors, and as a line cook: working-class experiences that inform both his scholarship and pedagogy.

Charlie’s range of interests and experiences fall well outside academia. A musician since childhood, he toured internationally and recorded as a member of the American Boychoir under the direction of James Litton. Charlie’s contemporary musical projects, recordings, and performances in warehouses and homes, bars and pubs, dedicated concert venues, and summer touring festivals span more than three decades of work, including his current roles as drummer and bassist in ensembles comprised of fellow academics.

Charlie lives in South Florida with artist, writer, and academic Kate Schmitt and their labish-dog, Maddie.