As a teacher, I strive to help students understand the work they do in broad social context, and encourage them to see their education not merely as something that enriches them intellectually and materially, but as an opportunity to better the world they live in too.

Courtney received a doctorate in literary and cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts in English from Portland State University. Her dissertation, “Images of Steel: Labor, Memory and the Cultural Work of Corporate Photography,” reflects her ongoing study of how working-class people have been represented in photography. Courtney’s research underscores her efforts to challenge her students to critically examine the complex conditions under which literary, visual and cultural texts are produced, viewed and consumed.

Courtney has published on film and on representations of workers in photography. She has 12 years’ experience teaching composition, including in the writing center at Portland State, and has taught such interdisciplinary cultural studies courses as “Urban Lives and the American Imagination” and “Representations of Women: High Art/Popular Culture.”