Joelle Troiano, Graduate Student  

Email Address: joelle.troiano@duke.edu

Teaching (Spring 2026):

• English 90s.02, Special topics in literature Synopsis

  Social sciences 124, WF 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

Highlight:
Joelle Troiano is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in English specializing in American literature of the mid-nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries. Her current research focuses on the genre of "the grotesque" in American literature and engages studies of religion, epistemology, and philosophies of language (especially Ordinary Language Philosophy) in interrogating appearances of belief in this literature. More broadly, her work asks questions about what it means to communicate in situations of excess -- the violent, the humorous, the deeply personal, the supernatural.

She holds a B.A. in English (and Biology) from Williams College.