Associate Professor
Department of English
Language and Literature

221 Lake Huron Hall
(616) 331-3388
[email protected]

Courses
ENG 105 Literatures in English
ENG 203 World Literature
ENG 215 Foundations of Literary Study: Genre
ENG 216 Foundations of Literary Study: Critical Approaches
ENG 303 Studies in World Literature
ENG 378 Contemporary Latin American Literature
ENG 382 Literature and the Environment
ENG 440 Studies in Major Author(s)
ENG 600 Graduate  Literary Studies Seminar
ENG 616 World Literature in English 
ENG 624 Genre Studies
ENG 661 Author or Topic Seminar
ENG 655 History of Literary Criticism & Theory

Biography

Professor Deyo started teaching at Grand Valley in Fall 2009, shortly after receiving his PhD in Literature from Vanderbilt University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in world literatures, environmental literature, and literary theory. His research and scholarship focus on postcolonial literatures from diverse regions and nations, including South Africa, Australia, and, more recently, Latin America—with a special emphasis on the socio-environmental legacies and impacts of European colonialism and imperialism, as well as American imperialism. Lately, Professor Deyo has taken up a serious interest in questions related to how and why the planet’s remaining Indigenous peoples, societies, and cultures might help us to reimagine our relations with the natural world and each other, specifically in the context of climate breakdown.

Research Interests

Medical-Environmental Humanities
Postcolonial Studies
Ecocriticism
Animal/Animality Studies
Critical Theory
Critical University Studies
Public Humanities

Recent Publications

“Ecophobia, the Anthropocene, and the Denial of Death.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, 26:2, Spring 2019.

“Tragedy, Ecophobia, and Animality in the Anthropocene.” Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment. Edited by Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2018.

Rev. of Susan McHugh, Animal Stories: Narrating Across Species Lines. Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology, 21:2, Spring 2013.

“Rewriting History/Animality in J.M. Coetzee’s Dusklands and Richard Flanagan’s Wanting.” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 44:4, October 2013.

“Subject to Sacrifice: The Repression of the ‘Animal’ in J.M. Coetzee’s Dusklands.” Being for the Other: Issues in Ethics and Animal Rights. Ed. Manish Vyas. New Delhi: Daya, 2011.

Education
B.A., Miami University (OH)
M.A., University of Chicago
Ph.D., Vanderbilt University