Profile for

Hyo Kyung Woo, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of American Literature

Innovating Pedagogy

September 1, 2026

Professors are constantly exploring new teaching methods in order to help their students learn more and better. Many of our faculty go one step further, researching teaching and learning practices themselves to help other educators develop more innovative pedagogy. Below is a sample of our work in digital learning and resources, second language learning and teaching, and the interaction between identity and education. Read more about Innovating Pedagogy.

While there are a variety of approaches to literary and media analysis, our faculty tend to research how literature/media shape and reflect culture. How do literature and media shape children’s (and adults’) perception of their world? How can individual people–authors, filmmakers, readers, editors–impact not just the publishing industry but also their culture through what they write and think? How is personal identity written into literature and media and how does that impact readers? These are the kinds of questions that spur many of our faculty members’ research. Read more about Reading Culture in Literature and Media.

Gloria Anzaldúa–a well-known Texas scholar and author–theorized what it means to exist in the borderlands, the area that spans borders and brings cultures into contact. Such spaces invite a blurring of identities and ideas that can produce exciting new literature and media. Like Anzaldúa, many of our faculty members research how stories–from classic literature to K-Pop and Disney movies–exist between and across borders. This research explores how people negotiate their own national and personal identities by exchanging and reshaping stories in these amorphous areas where cultures collide. Read more about Writing from the Borderlands.