Carla Barger

Dr. Carla Barger is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of South Dakota (2024/25 academic year) and holds a PhD in English from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois Chicago (ABD completed in 2024). She also teaches as a Teaching Assistant/Instructor of Record at UIC. Her research focuses on ecolyric poetry, environmental humanities, film rhetoric, and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. She actively creates interdisciplinary projects merging poetry with academic research.

Education: PhD in English (University of Illinois Chicago), MFA in Writing (School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Awards include the 2019 David Diamond Writing Prize and Malcolm Sedam Writing Award for Poetry. She collaborates with visual artists and scholars on public-facing projects.

Previously served as Poetry Editor for Jarnal and held roles as freelance editor and academic administrator. She uses digital tools to bridge creative writing with environmental and public humanities.

Notable recognition includes nominations for the AWP Intro Journals Project Award. Her creative work explores place, spectrality, folklore, and transgenerational trauma through a nature-focused lens.