Justine S. Murison

Justine S. Murison is a Professor and Department Head in the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds additional roles as Professor in Religion, the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretative Theory. Her research focuses on 19th-century American literature, early American literature, medicine and literature, secular studies, and the history of the novel. Murison is an LAS Alumni Distinguished Professorial Scholar, reflecting her scholarly contributions.

Education: Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania (2006); M.A., University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2000); B.A., American University (1997).

Her research explores intersections of literature with medicine, secularism, gender/sexuality, and transatlantic contexts. Major works include Faith in Exposure: Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States (2023) and The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (2011). Recent scholarship engages topics like privacy in Melville’s fiction and secularism in Emerson’s writings.

Publications span monographs, edited volumes, and peer-reviewed articles, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches to American literary history. Her work frequently appears in venues like American Literature and Atlantic Studies.

Murison’s affiliations include cross-disciplinary initiatives that reflect her commitment to critical theory and historical analysis. She teaches courses on American literature, secularism, and Gothic traditions, including 'Secularisms and Early US Fiction' and 'Literature and Culture of the American Civil War.'