About
Elysia Balavage is a Lecturer in the Department of English at Case Western Reserve University, affiliated with the College of Arts and Sciences. She is an Anisfield-Wolf Fellow and specializes in modernist literature, focusing on transnational readings of nihilistic themes, food in working-class spaces, and the intersection of power structures and human experience. Her research explores modernist authors' use of 'optimistic nihilism' to frame vacancy as provisional and fruitful, as detailed in her forthcoming book project, Hope and Nothing: Modernism’s Optimistic Nihilism.
Her scholarly work has appeared in Review of English Studies, Journal of Modern Literature, and Modernism/Modernity, with an upcoming chapter on Orwell and Food in George Orwell in Context (Cambridge UP). She teaches courses addressing modernist-era literature, intersectionality, and the socio-cultural dimensions of human experience.
Awards include the Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship, which supports her research on literary and cultural studies. While no grants or advising records are explicitly detailed, her pedagogical focus aligns with her research on marginalized voices and transnational narratives. She is based in Guilford 408 and contributes to the Writing Program Faculty.
