Jennifer Burns Bright (formerly Levin) holds a Ph.D. from the Department of English at the University of California, Irvine, and teaches in English and Comparative Literature after a four-year stint in the Robert D. Clark Honors College.  She specializes in the literature and culture of Transatlantic modernism, sexuality studies, and food studies from the nineteenth century to present day.

Bright's most recent work concerns the way modern writers struggled with and theorized their fleshly desires, often in opposition to the medical profession and obscenity laws.  For her work on Irish author James Joyce and sexuality, she has been awarded research fellowships from SUNY-Buffalo, the Chancellor and Regents of the University of California, and the James J. Harvey fund for gay and lesbian studies at U.C. Irvine.  She is editing a book-length manuscript on the intersection of modernism and masochism, and is working on the first draft of a new project on modernist cuisine. Two articles on obscenity studies are forthcoming in edited collections from university presses at Duke and Ohio State.  Academic work has appeared in Joyce Studies Annual, the James Joyce Quarterly, and the James Joyce Literary Supplement.  She is part of the steering committee for the emerging UO Food Studies Program, and leads the Food in the Field research interest group (RIG) for faculty and graduate students through the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society.

Bright also writes, speaks, and teaches in the Eugene community about local cuisine and sustainable food practices, moonlighting as a freelance food journalist and maintaining the award-winning local food blog, Culinaria Eugenius.   She writes a column for Eugene Magazine and co-hosts a radio show on Eugene's NPR affiliate, KLCC.  Her food writing and book reviews have appeared in Gastronomica, NPR's The Salt, Acres USA, and local newspapers.