Campus Directory

Division Humanities Division

Department/College/Unit Literature Department

Title PhD Student, Teaching Assistant

Graduate Major Literature

Affiliation Graduate

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Graduate Studies Division

Primary Office Location Humanities Building 1
Zoom

Office Hours for Students/ Office Hours Appointment

Mail Stop Literature Department

Biography, Education and Training

Born in Garden Grove and raised in Riverside, Lena, whose first language was Vietnamese, was determined to fluently read and understand Shakespeare after years of shying away from it in high school. In university, she studied Shakespeare with Dr. Heidi Brayman and Dr. John Briggs while discovering a love for American literature and poetry with Dr. Steven Axelrod. After earning a B.A. a year early in 2021, she completed a M.Ed and taught a class of 12th graders in 2022 (she misses them so much). Today, Lena aims to become a community college professor, a profession and position she feels will help her increase accessibility to Shakespeare and other initially intimidating texts.

B.A. English, summa cum laude, UCR, 2021

M.Ed. Single Subject English, UCR, 2022

Summary of Expertise

Literature of the Early Modern Period

Medieval Literature

Poetry

American 19th Century Poetry

Research Interests

Chivalric Fairy Tales

Emily Dickinson

Monstrosity and Otherness

Italian Renaissance Literature

Paradise Lost

Shakespeare

Teaching Interests

Emily Dickinson

Paradise Lost

Poetry