Scott O’Callaghan, Ph.D.

Associate Professor; division chair, the Hunter Division of Humanities

Everett Mansion 353
socall@svc.edu
802-447-6359

Education

  • Ph.D, State University of New York, Albany, 2011
  • M.S., English Education, Syracuse University, 1994
  • B.A., English, Williams College, 1991

Teaching experience

  • Associate Professor, Hunter Division of Humanities, Southern Vermont College, 2005-present
  • Composition Coordinator, Southern Vermont College, 2004-2010
  • Instructor, Hunter Division of Humanities, Southern Vermont College, 2002-2005
  • Adjunct Professor, English, University at Albany, State University of New York, 2001-2002
  • Instructor, English, University at Albany, State University of New York, 1997-2001
  • Instructor, English, Essex Community College, 1996-1997
  • Teacher, English, Carver Center for Arts and Technology, 1995-1996

Courses Taught

  • English Composition
  • Effective Speaking
  • Creative Writing
  • Advanced Fiction Workshop
  • Advanced Playwriting Workshop
  • Advanced Poetry Workshop
  • Performance and Publication
  • Theories of Writing
  • Introduction to Literature
  • Fiction
  • The 19th Century British Novel
  • Mythology
  • The 20th Century American Novel
  • Popular Fiction
  • Advanced Nonfiction Workshop
  • Arthurian Literature
  • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Literature
  • A Writer's View

Academic Research/Interests

My primary work is in the field of Composition. Specifically, my research focuses on how teachers respond to student writing. I am also very interested in the teaching of writing and in the field of creative writing. Another part of my brain is very interested in popular literature, including science fiction, graphic novels, and television.

Doctoral Dissertation
My dissertation, tentatively titled Response in Real Time: Bringing Contest to a Semester's Responses to Student Writing, examines all of the responses that I wrote in one semester teaching at Southern Vermont College. In it, I analyze the material conditions under which I made my responses - including when and where I wrote each comment - and discuss the patterns of what I wrote within those responses. Looking closely at the writing of several students within the study, I follow and analyze written exchanges between my words and students' reflections on their writing. I argue for a greater need for Composition scholars to consider material conditions in studies of response and argue for more faculty reflection around their own responses to student writing.

areas of expertise

Composition (and specifically there, the subject of Response to Student Writing)
Creative Writing
The teaching of writing
Genre fiction (including fantasy/science fiction, mystery and the graphic novel)

Why I teach

I teach to challenge students to do what they don’t yet know that they can do. Student growth and development doesn’t often happen in small, predictable and incremental steps. It happens in flashes of insight, great leaps of intuition, and Aha! moments that change everything. I live and teach for those moments in students’ lives.

Publications and Presentations

  • "Response Refocused and Remixed: Pushing Past Our Own Clichés Responding to Student Writing" at Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2010
  • Waves of Response: How Response Patterns Change Across All Responses in One Semester of College Teaching," Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2009
  • "Paradigms in Conflict: Towards a History of Response to Student Writing," presented at Conflict and (Ir)Resolution Graduate Student Conference, 2002
  • "Composing a History of Response: Where the Professional Conversation Has Focused (and Why)," presented at the Conference of College Composition and Communication, 2001
  • "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast: Killer Dichotomies and Embracing Contraries in Television's Survivor," presented at Inside Theory/ Outside Practice Graduate Student Conference, 2001
  • "Re-Presenting Response: Using Poetic Form to Promote Teacher Reflection," presented at Cartographics Graduate Student Conference, 2000
  • "Machine Dreams: Gender and Technology in Melissa Scott's Dreaming Metal," presented at the New York College English Association, 2000
  • "The Endless: Constellations of Immortal Family and Mortal Responsibility in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman," presented at Constellation Graduate Student Conference, 2000
  • "’The Coming of Shadows' - A B5 Milestone Remembered," published on Space.com, November 12, 2000
  • Television and book reviews, published on Space.com, 2000-2001
  • "War of the Worlds: Why the Hoax Worked," published on Space.com, October 29, 1999
  • "‘That’s Not What I Meant’: Setting the Limits in Open Assignments," presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, 1999
  • "A Pedagogy of His Own: Toward a Pro-Feminist Teaching for Men," presented at the National Organization of Men Against Sexism Conference, 1998
  • "The Realities of Power in the English Classroom: Toward a Negotiated Response to Students’ Texts," presented at the Edward F. Kelly Evaluation Conference, 1994

Favorite Book

This is a pretty impossible question to ask an English professor who reads constantly. Even as I answer with authors, I have so many. My all-time favorite writer is Charles De Lint, a Canadian author who writes contemporary urban fantasy. Who are some of my other favorites? In the traditional literary canon, I adore Homer, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens. In the modern literary canon, I love Jeanette Winterson, Sherman Alexie, Julia Alvarez, and Toni Morrison. Writers on writing I enjoy are Karen Elizabeth Gordon, Joseph Williams, Heather Sellers, and Jane Anne Staw. Science fiction writers I love are Melissa Scott, Harry Turtledove, David Brin, Kage Baker, Frank Herbert, Nicola Griffith, and Neal Stephenson. Fantasy writers I love are J.R.R. Tolkien, Jacqueline Carey, Katherine Kurtz, David Eddings, J.K. Rowling, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. My favorite mystery authors are Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Carol O’Connell, Laura Lippman, Laurie King, Nichelle Tramble, and Arturo Perez-Reverte. And my favorite comic book series or graphic novels are Sandman, Fables, Strangers in Paradise, Justice Society of America, Kingdom Come, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Starman, 1602, Top Ten, Legion of Superheroes, Batman: Long Halloween/Dark Victory and Watchmen. 

Favorite Movie

See my answer on books first. My favorite films? Casablanca, anything Star Wars, The Princess Bride, Gone with the Wind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Maltese Falcon, anything with Abbott and Costello, The Godfather, The Commitments, Election, Do the Right Thing, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Dirty Dancing (a guilty pleasure), Clueless, and adaptations of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. 

Favorite TV series

The West Wing, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, The Simpsons, Survivor, Project Runway, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Sportsnight, Top Chef, Survivor, The Big Bang Theory, Community, Modern Family and pretty much anything on the Food Network.

Best part of being at SVC

I am consistently wow-ed by all that students do in class and in their writing. I am moved by seeing students mature and grow across four years. At SVC, I am able to interact with students in a meaningful way and can truly see the difference that education makes.

HIGHLIGHTS

November 2011 - Professor Scott O’Callaghan traveled to James Madison University in Virginia in November to present a panel session at “Replacing Wands with Quills: A Harry Potter Symposium for Muggle Scholars.” O’Callaghan, who teaches Composition, English and Creative Writing at SVC spoke on Pedagogy and Morality in the Harry Potter Novels: “Good Teaching” and “Bad Teaching” from “Good Characters” and “Bad Characters.” 

April 2011 - Power Point presentation of Professor O’Callaghan’s doctoral dissertation, "Response in Real Time: Bringing Context to a Semester's Responses to Student Writing."

March 2011 - Humanities Division Chair Scott O’Callaghan, Provost Al DeCiccio and Composition Coordinator Bryna Siegel Finer presented at the SUNY Council on Writing annual conference in Binghamton, N.Y. Professor O’Callaghan discussed how a rhetorical framework used to redesign majors in English Studies and Creative Writing may serve as a model for other academic divisions within the College to redesign their own majors.

Fall 2010 - Teaching a section of Quest for Success (QFS). The students will be conducting interviews with former QFS students and faculty to explore how the course made a difference with former QFS students and faculty to explore how the course made a difference in their lives. What makes this project unusual is that such course reviews and studies are often conducted by faculty and administrators overseeing the course, not by students within the course itself.

March 2010 - Presented a talk entitled "Response Refocused and Remixed: Pushing Past Our Own Cliches Responding to Student Writing" at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Louisville, KY.

March 2009 - Spoke at the 2009 Conference on College Composition and Communication Annual Convention in San Francisco, Calif. During the session, "Responding to Student Writing," Professor O'Callaghan gave his presentation titled "Waves of Response: How Response Patterns Change Across All Responses in One Semester of College Teaching." 

October 28, 2008 - Quoted in an article in Yahoo! News titled "70th anniversary of fictional space invaders who panicked America," by Luis Tores de la Llosa. Read the article.