Karen Leick

Karen Leick is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of Professional Writing at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), Department of English. Her research focuses on literary modernism, digital humanities, and media studies, with emphasis on the intersection of modernist writers with mainstream culture and media.

Leick’s major publications include Gertrude Stein and the Making of an American Celebrity (Routledge, 2009) and Modernism on File: Writers, Artists, and the FBI, 1920-1950 (Palgrave, 2008). She is currently working on a digital humanities project analyzing American poetry anthologies (1910-1950) and a biography of poet Mary Carolyn Davies (under contract with SUNY Press). Her work explores how modernist figures like Stein were portrayed in popular media, revealing the deep entanglement between avant-garde art and mass culture.

Leick teaches courses in literature, professional writing, and first-year writing. Her research has been published in venues such as Modernism/modernity and Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, addressing topics ranging from FBI surveillance of artists to the cultural role of little magazines.

Her recent projects include exploring digital methodologies for literary analysis and examining media panics around childhood through works like Parents, Media and Panic Through the Years (2018). Leick’s interdisciplinary approach bridges traditional literary scholarship with emerging digital humanities practices.