JD Wright

  • Part-Time Instructor

J. D. Wright is principally affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh as a teaching and learning consultant with the University Center for Teaching and Learning; prior Pitt affiliations include the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. As a scholar, his field of expertise is 17th-Century devotional arts and ideas of recreation and play, with an emphasis on the poetry of George Herbert. He also writes and speaks on intersections between law and literature. As a teacher, Dr. Wright is a generalist and leads a wide range of diverse courses, which have included Behind Bars: Cross-Cultural Representations of Prison in the 20th Century; Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture; Vampire: Blood and Empire; Law, Literature, and Cinema; and Writing in the Legal Professions. Publications in a variety of fields include book chapters in Critical Insights: Flash Fiction and Stanley Kubrick: Essays on His Films and Legacy.

Courses Taught

Children and Culture

Detective Fiction

Introduction to Critical Reading

Introduction to Literature

Introduction to Shakespeare

Literature and the Contemporary

Reading Poetry

Science Fiction

Education & Training

  • PhD 2015, English, University of Pittsburgh
  • JD 1992, The College of William and Mary
  • BA 1989, Government, with high honors, The College of William and Mary

Representative Publications

“Altar of Print, Altars of Stone: George Herbert’s ‘The Altar’ and the Fabric of the English Reformed Church,” Anglican and Episcopal History 91.1 (2022): 1–23. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27118269 “Transcending Law and Literature: Literature as Law in Plato, Vico, and Shelley,” Law and Literature 29.2 (2017): 291–310. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2016.1207395 “John Donne’s ‘Sweetest love, I do not goe’: An Ode to Promiscuity,” Explicator 74.1 (2016): 61-65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2016.1147410