After graduating from the University of Virginia with a Ph.D. in English this May, John Modica returns to the University as an assistant professor of English, general faculty. He is a literary and cultural studies scholar who specializes in the politics of modern art and aesthetic experience; American culture; gay and lesbian writing; and feminist, queer and trans theory. He studies art and literature to understand the patterns of culture that structure our lives and the societies we build with them.

Modica is in the early stages of a manuscript on the role of the unconscious in the critique of political and libidinal economy in the contemporary United States. This past spring, he was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award in the Arts and Humanities, the University’s highest honor for graduate instructors.

Before coming to UVA for graduate school, Modica received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Rider University, in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, in May 2018. This fall, he will teach a first-year writing seminar on notions of “the good life,” and an advanced writing seminar on queer theories and practices of writing. He looks forward to learning from his students and colleagues in this new capacity as a member of the faculty.