Rachel Dean-Ruzicka

Rachel Dean-Ruzicka is a Senior Lecturer of Writing and Communication specializing in co-requisite course design and instruction. She has been in this role at Georgia Tech since 2016, after serving as a Marion L. Brittain Fellow from 2011-2014. Her research focuses broadly on popular culture, but the bulk of her publications cover young adult literature and comics. Her book, Tolerance Discourse and Young Adult Holocaust Literature: Engaging Difference and Identity, was published by Routledge in 2017, and released in paperback in 2019. Her work on this project was also published in Children’s Literature and Education and The Journal of Hate Studies. She has an article forthcoming in Oxford Handbook of Young Adult Literature on YA Holocaust lit. She has given invited talks on this research at Avila University and American University. More recently, she has published on paranormal teenagers and serial killers in Beyond the Blockbusters: Themes and Trends in Young Adult Literature and is currently completing an essay on the podcast My Favorite Murder for a collection on feminist detectives. Her teaching focuses on using popular culture artifacts to teach multimodal communication, with a heavy emphasis on the process through analysis and scaffolding. She has presented her work on this pedagogy at the National Organization for Student Success and the USG Teaching and Learning Conference. A longtime member of the Children’s Literature Association, she serves as Chaif of the Astrid Lindgren Award Committee and organized the 2021 virtual conference.