Hi, I’m Jules, a career educator and a founding instructor of The New Commons.

For the better part of a decade, I’ve taught high school English, developing courses in queer and sci-fi literature, alongside film literacy, while serving as English Department Head. I also have a background in theater performance, which has fueled a lifelong, obsessive study of Shakespearean adaptations. My personal and professional academic foundations include a B.A. in English Literature, highlighted by specialized study at Oxford University, followed by a teaching credentialing program at Humboldt State University.

I live for a hyper-fixation. Here are a few I’ll confess to: drumming, zine-making, Los Angeles neighborhood meandering, Dodger fanaticism (lite), indulging video essay rabbit holes, drag king performers, union organizing, reading through CD liner notes, crying non-ironically to the Beach Boys, and, most crucially, absorbing other people’s hyper-fixations. If you love things intensely, you’ll find no better audience than with me. 

As a compulsive explorer of worlds—both literary and mundane—I am particularly fascinated by how we build, maintain, burn, and rebuild bridges between them. When people would learn that I taught high school, the response was invariably, "Oh god—why?" The truth is that no one knows how to bring their full (and often messy) selves into an experience like a teenager, and there are no better learning experiences than those inhabited by your whole self. Authentically uniting ourselves and our communities through texts opens opportunities to profound personal and societal transformation. 

Literature remains one of our greatest teachers for bridging experiences and I hope The New Commons becomes a space where we can do just that.