Ashley Lear

Title
Professor
Email
Department
Humanities and Communication Department
College
College of Arts & Sciences

Office Hours

Monday / Wednesday 9-11, 3-4. Thursday / Friday by appointment. Contact me by email to schedule an appointment at ashley.lear@erau.edu.
Ashley Lear


Dr. Ashley Lear is a Humanities professor specializing in American Literature. She teaches introductory literature courses and upper-level courses in American and Russian Literature. Her courses for the Honors Program focus on science fiction and video game narratives. Dr. Lear's publications include works on digital pedagogy, science fiction, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ellen Glasgow, feminist narrative theory and women in astronomy. She is currently researching the narrative model of Hollow Knight as an allegory for the pandemic experience.

  • Ph.D. - Doctor of Philosophy in English, University of Houston
  • M.A. - Master of Arts in English, Wake Forest University
  • B.A. - Bachelor of Arts in English: Psychology, College of William and Mary

  • HON 350: Honors Seminar III
  • HU 145: Themes in the Humanities
  • HU 300: World Literature

  • COM 122: Composition and Literature
  • HU 142: Studies in Literature
  • HU 338: Traversing the Borders, Science and Science Fiction (a course focusing on interdisciplinary research)
  • HON 250: Video Game Topography
  • HU 300: World Literature (Russian)
  • HU 310: American Literature
  • HON 350: Archaeologies of the Future


The Remarkable Kinship of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Ellen Glasgow​, UP of Florida, 2018

Lear, A. (2024). Narrative World Building: Creative Applications for Gamification in Study Abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad36(1), 499–530. https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v36i1.695

Lear, A., & Taylor, K. (2023). “A woman ‘in the snow among the clocks and instruments’”: How Adrienne Rich reimagined the lives of women astronomers. Acta Astronautica207, 283–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2023.03.025

Lear, Ashley. “Discord in the Classroom” Scholarly Teacher, Mar. 23 2022, https://www.scholarlyteacher.com/post/discord-in-the-classroom

Lear, Ashley and Ethan Hale. “What is Real?: Gaslighting, Brainwashing, and Ontological Crisis in the Works of Philip K. Dick.” South Atlantic Review, vol. 85, no. 3, 2020, pp. 132-151. 

Lear, Ashley. “Science and Science Fiction: Methods for Evaluating Interdisciplinary and Intermedia Assignments.” The College English Association Forum, vol. 42, no.1, Winter/Spring 2013, pp. 99-126.

Lear, Ashley. “Making Dorothy Parker my MySpace Friend: A Classroom Application for Social Networks,” Writing (and) the Digital Generation. McFarland, 2010. 


Outstanding Teaching Award, ERAU, 2011

James E. Lewis Outstanding Service Award, ERAU, 2021