Dr. Bridget C Donnelly
Assistant Professor
Departments / Programs
- Department of English
- English
- English Graduate Programs
Degree Information
- PHD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2020)
- BA, Lawrence University (2012)
Areas of Expertise
British literature of the long eighteenth century, Restoration to Romanticism (1660-1830); theory and history of the novel; Gothic and horror literature; narratology and narrative theory; women writers; gender and sexuality studies; critical theory and cultural studies; history of transportation; law and literature; philosophy and literature; Taylor Swift studies
Biography
Dr. Bridget Donnelly joined the English department at MTSU in 2020. Her primary research and teaching focus is British literature of the "long" eighteenth century (roughly 1660-1830) and Gothic literature. She has published or forthcoming work in journals including Philosophy and Literature, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, and Pedagogy: C...
Read More »Dr. Bridget Donnelly joined the English department at MTSU in 2020. Her primary research and teaching focus is British literature of the "long" eighteenth century (roughly 1660-1830) and Gothic literature. She has published or forthcoming work in journals including Philosophy and Literature, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, and Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. Her book chapter, "Big Reputation: Reading Taylor Swift with Eighteenth-Century Women Writers" appeared in The Literary Taylor Swift (Bloomsbury 2025). A critical edition of Elizabeth Meeke's 1796 novel The Abbey of Clugny, co-edited by Dr. Donnelly and her students Brittany Eidemiller, Karsen Gray, Rebekah Lawler, Sara Heather Sandefur, and Brynlee Wolfe is under contract with Routledge Press's Chawton House Library: Women's Novels series.
Awards
Martha F. Bowden Teaching Prize for Innovative Pedagogy, Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2025
Fred and Joan Thomson Award for Outstanding Work on a Dissertation in 18th- or 19th-Century British Literature, Department of English and Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2020
Huntington Library, W.M. Keck Foundation Fellowship for short-term research (one month in residence), 2019
Aubrey Williams Research Travel Grant, American Society fo...
Read More »Martha F. Bowden Teaching Prize for Innovative Pedagogy, Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2025
Fred and Joan Thomson Award for Outstanding Work on a Dissertation in 18th- or 19th-Century British Literature, Department of English and Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2020
Huntington Library, W.M. Keck Foundation Fellowship for short-term research (one month in residence), 2019
Aubrey Williams Research Travel Grant, American Society for 18th-Century Studies, 2018
Jerry Leath Mills/Studies in Philology Travel Award for archival research in England, 2018
Best Graduate Student Paper Award, International Society for the Study of Narrative, awarded at annual conference in Amsterdam, 2016
Courses
Dr. Donnelly frequently teaches courses at all levels, including ENGL 1010: Expository Writing; ENGL 2020: Themes in Literature and Culture: Gothic and Horror; ENGL 3000: Intro to Literary Studies; ENGL 3020: British Literature, 1700-1918; and ENGL 6/7001: Introduction to Graduate Studies: Bibliography and Research. She also routinely teaches special topics courses, which in recent years have included Gothic and Horror, From Jonathan Swift to Taylor Swift, and Women Writers and the Rise of the Novel.
