Eric Morel is a new post-doc in the Composition Program.  Eric is curious about how and why we read, and how our reading practices relate to the ways we behave in the worlds we inhabit outside the page and screen. He  also loves the wild and weird lives and texts of nineteenth-century American writers, and these lives provide material for studying how “American culture” multiply construed has opened space for varied and often competing ideas. All these interests led him to write a dissertation on the category of nature writing and how it (and it’s readers!) took shape around and against other kinds of literary work. These interests have also led him to do work in the emerging area of ‘econarratology,’ which explores myriad relationships between stories and environmental thought, practices, and spaces. Eric co-edited the book Environment and Narrative: New Directions to Econarratology. He is excited to be joining the UD Department of English as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Outside of his academic work, he enjoy coffee, music, and hiking—and looks forward to exploring those interests with his wife and new dog in the Delaware region.