Department of English

Patricia O'Connor is an Associate Professor of English. Her current research focuses on narratives of addiction. She also researches prisoners' narratives and a grammar of agency; functions of story; Appalachian narratives; teaching writing; prison teaching; literacy struggles.

O'Connor earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University, M.A.in English from Georgetown University and B.A. in Secondary Education with specializations in teaching English and French from Marshall University.

In 2005 Prof. O'Connor received the Mitsubishi Unsung Hero Award for her community service work in addiction. In 2004 Professor O'connor co-edited a special volume on outreach into prisons: Reflections--Prison Literacies, Narratives and Community Connections.

Other O'Connor publications include:
Speaking of Crime (2000), Literacy Behind Prison Walls (1994) (with Karl O. Haigler, Caroline W. Harlow, and Anne Campbell); and articles on narrative strategies and discourses of violence in a variety of journals including: The Journal of African American Men; Discourse & Society; Text; Pragmatics; Pre/Text.

O'Connor is a founding member of the national service-learning organization--Educators for Community Engagement, a senior research fellow in the GU Center for Social Justice. She also has published articles on service learning in NSEE Quarterly, Public Outreach, and in Watters and Ford Writing for Change.