Mary-Catherine Harrison is associate professor and chair of the Department of English at University of Detroit Mercy, where she has been on the faculty since 2008. Harrison serves as president of the McNichols Faculty Assembly and executive director of Rx for Reading Detroit, a non-profit literacy initiative focused on expanding access to children’s books. Previously she served as co-director of the university’s Honors Program and director of the Academic Exploration Program. Her research focuses on 19th-century British literature and culture, narrative theory and the psychology of reading, and she is particularly interested in how literature shapes readers’ ethical beliefs and behavior.