Heidi Hoechst joins the Cornell English department as a Visiting Assitant Professor of English after two years as a Law and Society Lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was also the Faculty Advisor for UCSB's Law and Society Journal. Her teaching interests focus on U.S. Literatures (19th and 20th century), Critical Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies/U.S. Cultural Studies, and Comparative Ethnic Studies. She is currently working on a book project that examines the cultural ties that link economic speculation to a long history of race and gender injustices in the United States.