Alison Shonkwiler

Alison Shonkwiler is a Professor in the Department of English at Rhode Island College (RIC), where she has taught since 2011 after previous appointments at Rutgers University, Cornell University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Her academic expertise lies at the intersection of literature, economic systems, and labor studies.

Her educational qualifications are:

• B.A. from Amherst College
• M.A. from Rutgers University, New Brunswick
• Ph.D. from Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Shonkwiler's research centers on literatures of capitalism, globalization, and work, examining homesteading, survivalism, and post-wage labor. Her book The Financial Imaginary (2017) analyzes representations of abstract capitalism in contemporary American realist novels. She co-edited Reading Capitalist Realism (2014), exploring narrative limits under neoliberal austerity. Her teaching spans literary theory, nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, and postmodernism, consistently interrogating literature's relevance to understanding economic systems.

Her publication trajectory reveals sustained engagement with economic themes in literature. Recent works analyze financial metafiction (2023), neo-homesteading (2020), and survivalism (2019), tracing connections between literary form and capitalist critique. She examines how fiction processes financial crises, risk economies, and labor transformations, demonstrating literature's capacity to model alternative economic imaginaries beyond traditional wage relations.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• L.S. Dembo Prize for best essay published in Contemporary Literature in 2010

Though specific advisees aren't listed, Professor Shonkwiler teaches graduate courses including ENGL 501 (Introduction to Graduate Study) and ENGL 541 (Topics in American Literature), indicating active mentorship of master's students. Her senior seminar ENGL 460 on "Money and Work in the American Century" suggests undergraduate research supervision. No external grant funding is mentioned in the provided materials.

Shonkwiler's scholarly profile indicates primarily individual research output, though her co-edited volume Reading Capitalist Realism demonstrates collaborative scholarly engagement. There is no reference to laboratory facilities or large research teams in her current institutional context.