Dan Burns
Assistant Professor of English
Department: English
Email: dburns2@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-5814
Professional Expertise
Links
News & Notes
Education
PhD, English, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
MA, English, Clemson University
BA, Psychology, Clemson University
Courses Taught
ENG 3700: Jewish American Literature; ENG 3640: Film Criticism; ENG 3510: The Novel; ENG 2250: African American Literature before 1945; ENG 2240: American Literature after 1865; ENG 1725: Stephen King; ENG 1230: The Social Thriller; ENG 1235: Cult Classics, Literary Trash; ENG 1232: Literature on Screen; ENG 1100: Writing: Argument and Inquiry; GFC 2100: Introduction to Global Film & Cultures; GFC 4970: Global Film & Cultures Capstone.
Leadership Positions
Secretary, Literature/Film Association, 2025-
Co-coordinator (with Kai Swanson), Global Film & Cultures Minor, 2023-
Co-advisor (with Jill Auditori), Elon College Fellows Living Learning Community, 2022-25
Research
film & media studies; adaptation; history & theory of the novel; 20th/21st c. U.S. literature and culture; genre studies; literary theory
Grants Awarded
Recent Grants
ECAS Dean Mini Grant, (with Maggie Kelly). Elon College, the College of Arts & Sciences, Elon University, 2026.
Read On Elon Book Club, (with Maggie Kelly). Phi Beta Kappa (φβK), Elon College, the College of Arts & Sciences, Elon University, 2025.
Winter Term Enhancement Grant, Center for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning (CATL), Elon University, 2025.
Faculty Engagement Grant, Committee on Elon History & Memory (CEHM), Elon University, 2024.
Best Practices in Writing Pedagogy Grant, “Teaching Best Practices through Multimodal Composing: The Videographic Essay,” (with Kai Swanson), Center for Writing Excellence (CWE), Elon University, 2022.
Teaching and Learning Grant, “Team-Teaching to Promote Cross-Disciplinary Learning in the Undergraduate Film & Media Analysis Classroom,” (with Kai Swanson), Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL), Elon University, 2022.
Publications
"Adapting If Beale Street Could Talk Across Two Eras." The Routledge Companion to James Baldwin. Eds. Yasmin Y. DeGout and Tyechia Thompson. Routledge (Forthcoming 2025).
Reviews
Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay. American Book Review, vol. 46, no. 3, 2025. Invited.
Miss Macintosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young. American Book Review, vol. 47, no. 1. Invited. (Forthcoming 2025).
Swallowing a World: Globalization and the Maximalist Novel by Benjamin Bergholtz. American Book Review, vol. 47, no. 1. Invited. (Forthcoming 2025).
Presentations
Recent Conference Presentations
“‘An Immense Spiritual Dread of Space’: The Meaning of Miniaturism in Ari Aster’s Hereditary.” Literature/Film Association (LFA). Georgia Southern University, Savannah, GA, September 2025.
“Queer Kinship and the ‘Unfamilied Child’ in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers.” Adaptation and Aging. The LFA/AAS Online Conference. Literature/Film Association and the Association of Adaptation Studies. February 2025.
“Beyond Empathy in the Civil Rights Biopic: The 'Thick Solidarity' of Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah.” Literature/Film Association (LFA). York College of Pennsylvania, York, PA, September 2024.
“‘…this door was intended only for you…’: Spectatorial Subjectivity in Orson Welles’ The Trial.” Writerly Worlds and Worldly Writers: Transcultural Receptions of German Writers. American Comparative Literature Association Conference (ACLA). Palais des congrès de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada, March 2024. Invited.
“Seriality and Sustain: The Resistance to ‘Assigned Streaming’ in a Binge-worthy Era.” Co-presented with Kai Swanson. Adapting in and Out of the Classroom. The LFA/AAS Online Conference. Literature/Film Association and the Association of Adaptation Studies, February 2024.
Mapping the Maximalist Novel, Roundtable Discussion, Modern Language Association Annual Convention (MLA). Philadelphia, PA, January 2024. Invited.
"Direction as Data Extraction: Surveilling Behavioral Surplus in Joseph Kosinski's Spiderhead." Co-presented with Kai Swanson. Literature/Film Association Conference (LFA). University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, September 2023.
“Cross-Disciplinary Strategies for Engaged Learning: Partnering Language and Visual Tools for Course Design.” Co-presented with Kai Swanson. Elon Teaching and Learning Conference, Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL), Elon University, Elon, NC, June 2023.
“Too Big to Fail: Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life and the Art of Excess in the Age of Inclusion.” Twenty-First-Century Forms Special Session, Modern Language Association Annual Convention (MLA). San Francisco, CA, January 2023.
“Voice v. Vision: The Reception History of Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk.” Co-presented with Christina Stafford. The LFA/AAS Online Conference. Literature/Film Association and the Association of Adaptation Studies, February 2022.
Professional Activities
Peer Review Panelist: National Endowment for the Humanities, Awards for Faculty Program, American Literature, Language, and Studies (2023).
Editorial Referee: South Asian Review; Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture; The Comparatist; Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal; College Literature.
Service Activities
German Studies Advisory Board, Department of World Languages & Cultures, Elon University, 2025-
Academic Standing Committee, Elon University, 2024-
Programming Committee (with Sandy Marshall and Binnan Gao), Global Neighborhood Film Series, 2022-
Library Committee, Elon University, 2022-24.
Professional Development
First-Year Experience (FYE) Community of Practice, Elon University, 2024-25.
Faculty Mentor, Preparing Future Faculty (PFF), The Graduate School, Duke University, 2023-24.
Advancing Equity Summer Institute, Office of the Provost/Academic Inclusive Excellence, Elon University, 2023.
Summer Writing Pedagogy Institute, Center for Writing Excellence, Elon University, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2023.