About

Dr. Rasmussen (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2008) teaches literature, environment, and natural history. His courses include Environmental Literature, Science and Literature ("Darwin and Literary Narrative"), and the History of Natural History, an interdisciplinary Honors seminar team-taught with faculty in Biology and Math.

Ongoing research projects include explorations in the intersections between technology and nature, the history of invertebrate science and psychology, and twentieth-century California scientific explorations of Mexico. He is contributing science writer for a series of biodiversity resurvey expeditions for the Mexican Bird Resurvey Project, in collaboration with the Robert T. Moore Lab of Zoology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. The work is highlighted in a recent edition of the Ventura County Star.

He is a certified California Naturalist.

Education

Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington

Expertise

Literature and environment; history and philosophy of science; Charles Darwin; nineteenth-century British literary and cultural history; California natural history

Publications

Articles:

• "Technologies of Nature: The Natural History Diorama and the Preserve of Environmental Consciousness." Victorian Studies 60.2 (Spring 2018): 255-68. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.60.2.11
• "Pokémon Go, an Unnatural History: Reflections on race, privilege, and access to augmented nature." Boom: A Journal of California. Web. June 22, 2017. URL: https://boomcalifornia.com/2017/06/22/pokemon-go-an-unnatural-history-reflections-on-race-privilege-and-access-to-augmented-nature/
• "Invertebrate Psychology before and after Darwin." BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. 2017. URL: http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=bryan-b-rasmussen-invertebrate-psychology-before-and-after-darwin
• "From God's Work to Fieldwork: Charlotte Tonna's Evangelical Autoethnography." ELH 77.1 (Spring 2010): 159-94. (Available here with CLU login through Project Muse: http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.callutheran.edu/journals/elh/toc/elh.77.1.html)

Reviews:

• Darwin and Theories of Aesthetics and Cultural History. Ed. Barbara Larson and Sabine Flach. Surrey: Ashgate, 2013. Victorian Studies 57.3 (Spring 2015): 535-37.
• Anne Isba, The Excellent Mrs. Fry: Unlikely Heroine. Continuum, 2010.  Victorian Studies  54.1 (Autumn 2011): 153-55.
• Anna Maria Jones, Problem Novels: Victorian Fiction Theorizes the Sensational Self. The Ohio State University Press, 2007. Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net 53 (Feb. 2009). URL: www.erudit.org/revue/ravon/2009/v/n53/029912ar.html.

Media + Public Scholarship:

• "The Harmony of Nature," segment on natural history dioramas and American wilderness ideals for Backstory American history podcast. 38:00-51:00. November 2018. URL: https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/stuffed
• "Inside the Minds of Animals." TED-Ed. July 2015. URL: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/inside-the-minds-of-animals-bryan-b-rasmussen 

Grant Funding

2017. Hewlett Research Grant, Archival study and repeat photography of the Sierra San Pedro Martir, Baja, Mexico, $1000

2015. Hewlett Research Grant, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley, Lower California (Baja) archival expedition research, $500

2013. Faculty Research & Creative Works Grant, History of European science museums, $4000

2012. Community Leaders Association, "Small Creatures Sanctuary" apiary. $2025