Senior Lecturer, Department of English
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Rob Spirko is a senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His primary area of interest is disability studies, with connections to science fiction studies, digital humanities and digital literacy. After completing a paper examining the role of eugenics in recent X-men films, he is expanding to a larger project around the rhetoric of the American eugenics movement and how it continues to influence public policy and attitudes a century later.
Spirko recently served as a faculty fellow at the University of Tennessee's Office of Information Technology. He worked with faculty across campus to increase accessibility and integrate digital technology in their classes. He is a member of the Universal Design for Learning Implementation and Research Network (UDL-IRN), investigating and promoting UDL to deepen pedagogy and increase accessibility.