Rhona Trauvitch, Ph.D., specializes in cross-disciplinary analogical reasoning at the intersection of literature and STEM. She developed the fiction→science, or fi-sci, pattern mapping model, which involves identifying commonalities between works of fiction and science processes. Her research shows that when science and fiction share a form, analogy helps us reason about one domain in terms of the other. Cross-disciplinary analogies establish that fictionality has the rhetorical power to promote science accessibility, foregrounding a crucial aspect of fictionality's societal impact: Because it boosts cognitive apprehension of STEM, fiction can help us better fathom complex, multivariate phenomena—from public health and ecological systems to paradigm-shifting technological advancements.
Dr. Trauvitch’s introduction to fi-sci appears in the Narratologies of Science special issue of the Journal of Narrative Theory (2023), she is co-editor with James Phelan of Fictionality and Science in Dialogue, a special issue of the journal Style, and her monograph Fi-Sci: Avatars of Science in Fiction is forthcoming from the Ohio State University Press.
The pedagogical application of Dr. Trauvitch's research is led by FIU’s Science & Fiction Lab, of which she is Founding Director. Since 2021 the Lab has leveraged the fi-sci model in service of sparking integrative teaching and learning. Dr. Trauvitch is the principal investigator of Lab projects for which she has secured two major federal research grants: in 2023 a $150,000 Humanities Initiatives award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and in 2025 a $400,000 Improving Undergraduate STEM Education award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Supported by this funding, FIU faculty have been using the pattern mapping framework to break down curricular silos, guiding students to apply and translate their expertise to new contexts so that they may approach complex challenges with interdisciplinary fluency.
Dr. Trauvitch teaches face-to-face, online, and hybrid courses in narrative theory, multimedial popular culture, and the confluence of literature and science, including science fiction. She was awarded a Faculty Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching (2018), a RETI (Rewarding Excellence in Teaching Incentive) Award (2022), and CASE Faculty Recognition Awards for Teaching (2017; 2023) and Research (2024; 2025).
Education
- Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- M.Sc. Social and Public Communication, The London School of Economics and Political Science
- B.A. Government, Smith College
Selected Courses
- ENG 3072 Literary Theory in Multimedial Popular Culture
- IDH 3034 Quantum Narratology and Other Curiosities: Intersections of Science and Storytelling
- IDH 3034 Westworld: A Story of Fungibility
- IDH 3035 Severance: A Mystery of Clews
- LIT 1000 Introduction to Literature
- LIT 3023 Around the World in Short Stories
- LIT 3313 Science Fiction
- LIT 3343 Short Stories of Horror and the Weird
- LIT 3703 Studies in Metaphor: Fi-Sci Pattern Mapping
- LIT 5934 Special Topics: The Library of Borges
- LIT 5934 Special Topics: Water and Memory
Selected Publications
Books/Monographs
- Trauvitch, Rhona. Fi-Sci: Avatars of Science in Fiction. Ohio State University Press, forthcoming.
Edited Volumes/Special Issues
- Trauvitch, Rhona, and James Phelan, editors. Fictionality and Science in Dialogue. Special issue of Style, vol. 59.3, 2025.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Piranesi and the House, Which Others Call the Universe.” The Rise of Science and Fiction. Special issue of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, edited by Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen, under review.
- Trauvitch, Rhona, and James Phelan. “Goldilocks in Outer Space, or: An Odd Conjunction That Makes Perfect Sense.” Fictionality and Science in Dialogue. Special issue of Style, edited by Rhona Trauvitch and James Phelan, vol. 59.3, 2025, pp. 303-310.
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Map, Matryoshkas, Ouroboros: Three Types of Borgesian Framing in Trust.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 138.5, 2023, pp. 1224-1230.
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Mapping with Fi-Sci: Why and How Fictionality Illuminates Science.” Narratologies of Science. Special issue of Journal of Narrative Theory, edited by Daniel Aureliano Newman, vol. 53.1, 2023, pp. 59-86.
Book Chapters
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Severance Text(ile)s: Clues and Clews.” The Work is Mysterious and Important: Critical Perspectives on Severance, edited by Vera Cuntz-Leng and Ruth Knepel, Büchner, forthcoming.
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Borges’s Lens: The Symphony of a Rhizomatic Course.” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Jorge Luis Borges, edited by José Eduardo González, Modern Language Association, 2025, pp. 63-70.
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Charting the Extraordinary: Sentient and Transontological Spaces.” Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative, edited by Robert T. Tally Jr., Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 199-213.
Press and Interviews
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “Episode 50: Jim Phelan & Rhona Trauvitch—Ken Liu’s “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species.”” Interview by James Phelan. Project Narrative Podcast, 19 Dec. 2025. podcast.osu.edu/projectnarrative/2025/12/19/episode-50-jim-phelan-rhona-trauvitch-ken-lius-the-bookmaking-habits-of-select-species/.
- Trauvitch, Rhona. “From Ancient Jewish Texts to Androids to AI, a Just-Right Sequence of Numbers or Letters Turns Matter into Meaning.” The Conversation, 13 Oct. 2023, doi.org/10.64628/AAI.vhfks3a3q.