Profile
Austin Bailey is a Doctoral Lecturer in English at Hunter College. Austin received his PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2025. His research centers on nineteenth-century American literature and culture and, specifically, their intersections and conversations with philosophy. Currently, Austin is working on a book project called American Becomings: Ontological Thinking in the Nineteenth Century, which charts how nineteenth-century US authors enact complementary forms of ontological thinking in their writing that unsettles and unfixes cultural norms.
Besides literature, Austin also researches in the field of composition studies, especially the theory and practice of ungrading, which he frequently discusses with the Hunter community through ACERT (Hunter’s faculty development center). Austin’s publications have appeared in venues like ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture, The Pluralist, The Journal of American Studies in Italy, and The Journal of Basic Writing, among other places. Austin also sits on the Board of Trustees for the Thoreau Society.
Pedagogically speaking, Austin is guided by his deep conviction that what matters most in the classroom is authentic learning, which is best achieved through classroom environments and pedagogical approaches that begin by trusting students and that prioritize and center care as a radical act.