Kyndra Turner

As a Teaching Associate (2010-2015), Faculty Associate (2015-2022), and now Instructor (2022-present) at Arizona State University, Dr. Turner has designed and implemented numerous composition, literature, and technical communication courses. Her research draws on transnational American studies methodologies and ecocriticism in order to provide models for what she calls “readings in the Anthropocene” or re-readings of classic and contemporary texts that intervene and question dominant ideologies of power and progress. She illustrates how writers, filmmakers, and academics have been calling attention to dramatic climate events that challenge the public to rethink the relationships between human beings and other species, and reconsider responses to ecological systems of low predictability, high variability, and frequent extremes. As a whole, her work shows how ecocritical readings of texts offer insights into changing human behavior and suggest alternative practices, which provide new ways to imagine livable futures. 

Her book chapter titled, Writing in the Anthropocene from the Global North to the Global South: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Richard Power’s The Echo Maker, was published in "Critical Norths: Space, Nature, Theory" edited by Kevin Maier and Sarah Jaquette Ray (University of Alaska Press, 2017). 

From 2013-2014, she served as key researcher for the North American Observatory's Western Cluster. In this position, she organized and facilitated several conferences and workshops that brought together literary critics, historians, political ecologists, indigenous studies scholars, and philosophers to work on collaborative projects that can be adapted and re-scaled for different institutions and communities interested in exploring how social values and human behaviors can be transformed together as a key step in developing alternative solutions to the complex environmental challenges we face now and for the future.

Prior to working at Arizona State University, Turner taught at the Hong Kong Institute of Education as a Fulbright Fellow. In addition to her work in Hong Kong, she had the opportunity to teach English and work closely with students and faculty at the Yangzhou Polytechnic College in Jiangsu Province, China, and the Longdong University in Qingyang, Gansu, China. She also holds a Lecturer position at California State University, Channel Islands.