I had the privilege of interviewing Wittenberg University’s most recent English department hire, Dr. John Gulledge. He received his English doctorate from Emory University in 2023 with specializations in British literature, disability studies, and aesthetics. I sat down to get to know him a little better as he begins his first term teaching here.
-Kristina Withem, ’26
2023-24 SAGE co-president
Interview Transcript:
Where are you from?
I moved here from Atlanta, Georgia where I was doing my doctorate. And before that I lived in Alabama, and then before that I lived in South Carolina. So, I am originally, originally from South Carolina.
How are you feeling about the upcoming cold weather, then?
A lot of people have given me some tips and advice, so I think I am somewhat prepared, theoretically. We’ll see if I can put it into practice and make it through, but I think I’ll make it. I definitely won’t be used to the snow, but I have heard after your first winter here, you get used to it and it gets easier.
How do you, personally, tie disability and aesthetics into literature?
Yeah, that’s a good question. The kind of, I guess, obvious way is that it is about representation. So, I look at the ways literature reproduces, iterates on, and revises disability experiences or embodiments. And then, I’m interested in how that can alter the aesthetics of a particular literary form. So, encounters with, or even the act, of trying to represent disabilities can oftentimes change the aesthetic or formal features of a particular text or genre. Then, the deeper part of that, the less obvious part, is that I am very interested in preserving and conserving disability experience in culture. One way that I do that is by trying to find the places where something like a disability aesthetic, or disability sensibility, prefigures aesthetic innovations. So, I look in poetry, things like caesura or even kennings. For drama I think about dialogue as being about disfluency, about stilted speech, and how there are particular kinds of embodiments and disabilities that have found their way into aesthetic forms of literature. I want to find those and preserve them and name them for what they are, which is disability culture.
Given your areas of expertise, if you could teach any class here at Wittenberg, what would it be?
My dream class, which I’m hoping to invent in the future, is a class on disability justice. It would be literary; there will be a lot of literature in there. But it’s also about cultural studies and with a focus on activism, social justice, as well as medical health humanities. That’s my dream class.
Was being a professor always your goal when you started college?
Uh no. So, everything I did as an undergrad was in preparation to go to law school. I wanted to be a lawyer, and I actually took the LSAT, and I got into law school. It seemed like everything was going according to plan. In May of my senior year, after I had already gotten into law school, I had a bit of an existential crisis imagining what life would look like, ten years, twenty years, whenever down the road. And I really didn’t like what I imagined my life would look like, or even what I would be like, or the person I might become. I sort of jumped ship abruptly and the very next day I started studying for the GRD and knew I would become a professor. That life, this life now, seemed like it would be more fulfilling. So no, I took a kind of broken road to get here.
What brought you to Wittenberg specifically?
The people. Of the places I was fortunate enough to interview with and get to know the departments of, this was the one where I felt the most welcome. There’s a warmth to the department. There’s a kind of authenticity; these are real people that really care. It was a place where I could wake up and see myself wanting to go to work. That was really important to me. So, it was 100% the people.
What do you enjoy doing outside of teaching?
I do some nerdy things. I like to play Dungeons and Dragons, so I enjoy tabletop RPGs. I play video games and paint miniatures. I obviously like to read, and I love going to the movies. And of course, I love seeing live performances, so the theater, because I studied drama. So, yeah, a lot of, somewhat nerdy things. Nothing too cool.
What’s your go to race/class combination in Dungeons and Dragons?
Okay, so I love short races. Dwarves are, in many ways, my favorite race of all time, especially in Tolkien. But I hardly ever play Dwarves surprisingly. I normally play a Gnome, and it’s often a wizard for the school of illusions. I basically play the prankster of the party and harass my friends the whole time.
On the Wittenberg website it mentions “The Puck Project,” I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit.
Yes. In 2008, some colleagues and I created “The Puck Project.” It comes out of some relationships and trainings we had done with “Shakespeare Behind Bars,” “The Feast of Crispian” and, “The Miranda Project.” These are all similar Shakespeare performance-based programming that work with different types of populations, from citizens that are currently incarcerated to veterans to children with chronic illnesses. “The Puck Project” was inspired by those programs and the relationships we had with those. It really came from connections we had made with our community partner in Atlanta, Georgia, Nicholas House, which is a long-term homeless shelter for families. Working with them, we formed a Shakespeare performance program for kids, and we ran it every summer except during the height of the pandemic. It really reshaped what I think about scholarship and academics, as well as my role as a professor and as an academic. I hope to do similar things here in Springfield.
You’re stranded on a deserted island, what three books do you bring with you?
This is easy. Well, it’s kind of easy. I have a tattoo with three roses on my arm, and each rose represents a different book that shaped me as a young person. These are the three books that I would bring. The first one is The Giver, the second one is Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, and the third one is King Lear by Shakespeare. Yeah, those three. There’s something kind of existential about those three that links them. Otherwise, they are quite different, aren’t they? In that order they were just different marking points before I turned 18, you could say, just sort of reading those texts changed my outlook on life.
Have you had a chance to explore downtown Springfield yet?
Not as much as I would like. I went to the Jazz Festival when I first moved here, which was awesome. I got to look around a little bit at Mother Stewart’s. But that’s about it. It hasn’t been that much. Is there anything you would recommend?
Have you ever been to Winans? I don’t know if it’s a local thing or a chain.
I haven’t been there, but I know people talk about it and I have driven by it.
I’m a big fan of their Buckeye Latte.
Okay. Are you from Ohio?
Yeah.
So, we were having this conversation about buckeyes. That, I know they’re a thing and they’re chocolate and peanut butter. But they’re based on a poisonous nut. That’s funny to me. I learned that shortly after moving here. I hear they’re good, especially if they’re homemade apparently. I’ll have to go check out the coffee though.
Is there anything you want Witty English to know about you?
There is a lot to know about me, and people are more than welcome to come knock on my door. I am usually here, and I would love to chat with students or other faculty about what they do and what I do. I am kind of an open book.
If you want to learn any more details about Dr. John Gulledge, visit his Wittenberg biographical page here.
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