Cokal was once an assistant professor of creative writing and modern literature at California Polytechnic State University and is currently an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. The range of her interests can be seen in her contributions to the "St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture" on abortion, supermodels, Kate Moss, and zoos. She teaches literature of the last 150 years with an international perspective, often featuring Vladimir Nabokov (whom she has called one of her literary idols), Colette, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Knut Hamsun, Marcel Proust, Patrick Süskind, Sarah Waters, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf, and magic-realist authors such as Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Louise Erdrich, Gina Nahai, and Winterson.