CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION:
1987:
Ph.D., English, Princeton
University
Dissertation: “The Motions of Grace: Flannery O’Connor’s Typology”
1982:
M.A., English, Princeton University
Major
Period: 18th-century English literature
Major Author: Samuel Johnson
Minor Period: 19th- and 20th-century British literature
1980:
B.A., cum laude, Pomona College,
Claremont, California
Major: English
Comprehensive Examinations passed with distinction
ACADEMIC
POSITIONS:
Professor of English, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville:
full-time, 2000-2008, adjunct 2009-2013 (scheduled), emeritus, 2013- (status
voted unanimously by English Department Faculty, 2008).
Associate Professor, Southern Illinois
University at Edwardsville, 1994-2000
Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois
University at Edwardsville, 1988-93
(Appointed to the Graduate Faculty, 1989)
Lecturer, Princeton University, 1984-1988
Lecturer, Bryn Mawr College,
1986-87
Assistant in Instruction, Princeton
University, 1982-1984
Visiting:
Visiting Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University,
2010
PUBLICATIONS:
Books:
Tom Wolfe: A Critical Companion (Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers).
Greenwood P, 2002.
A Wreck on the Road to Damascus: Innocence, Guilt and Conversion in Flannery O'Connor
Foreword by
Jill P. Baumgaertner. Loyola
UP, 1989.
Articles in Journals:
“Do Facts Matter on a CD-ROM?” Papers on Language & Literature, Fall 2001, 438-442.
“Daredevil Charity: Flannery
O’Connor’s ‘The Comforts of Home.’” Proceedings: Northeast Regional
Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature, ed. Joan F. Hallisy and Mary-Anne Vetterling.
Regis College, 1998, 102-107.
“Converging Liturgies: A Methodist
Mass?” The Anglican Digest, Spring 1998, 35-39.
“‘Another Woman and Another Room:’ Men,
Women, and Flannery O’Connor.” The Journal of Contemporary
Thought, 4 (1994), 37-53.
“Semiotics and Heraldry.” Semiotica,
100-1 (1994), 5-34.
“A Wretch Like Who?” America, CLXXX(3):8-11, January 29, 1994; republished in a
substantially revised version as “Hymns Mean Something” in The Anglican
Digest, XXXVI(4): 35-38, 1994; republished as “Today’s Hymns and the
‘Vaporization of Religion’” in the Australian journal AD 2000 VII(7):12-13,
1994.
“Motions of Grace: Flannery O’Connor.” Family,
December, 1994: 28.
“An Uncanonical
Classic: The Politics of the Norton Anthology,” Christianity &
Literature, XL (4):471-479 (Published 1994).
“Grace and Grotesques: Recent Books on
Flannery O’Connor.” Papers on Language & Literature, Summer 1991, 386-98.
“Chaucer, Jean de Meun,
and Proverbs 30:20.” Notes and Queries, September,
1988, 295-95.
“Lessons from Biden’s Plagiarism,” op-ed
page, The New York Times, September 25, 1987, A39 (reprinted elsewhere).
Familiar Essays:
“ARLS Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary.” American
Religion and Literature Society Newsletter. Spring 2007. 1+.
“Gypsies, Saints, and Squirrels:
Remembering Jane Zatta.” Papers
on Language & Literature, Summer/Fall 2005. 239-249.
“The Baby Jesus and the Angel of Light.” The
Christian Century, Vol. 112 No.36, 1212-1216, December 13, 1995.
Chapters in Books:
“‘We Have Always Gone West’: Automobiles,
Innocence, and All the King’s Men,” To Love So Well the World: A Festschrift
in Honor of Robert Penn Warren, ed. Dennis L. Weeks. Peter Lang, 1992. 189-96.
“Vikram Seth,” The
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. CXX: American Poets Since World War II, ed.
R.S. Gwynn. Gale, 1992. 281-85.
Articles in
Reference Works:
“W.H. Auden,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“Wendy Cope,” Continuum Encyclopedia
of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“William Cowper,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“John Galsworthy,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“George Herbert,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“A.E. Housman,” Continuum Encyclopedia
of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“Nicolas Monsarrat,”
Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum,
2003.
“John Henry Newman,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“Siegfried Sassoon,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“Charles Wesley,” Continuum
Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum, 2003.
“W.H. Auden,” Encyclopedia of
American Literature. Continuum, 1999. 58-59.
“Malcolm Cowley,” Encyclopedia of
American Literature. Continuum, 1999. 228-229.
“Caroline Gordon,” Encyclopedia of
American Literature. Continuum, 1999.
454.
“Donald Hall,” Encyclopedia of
American Literature. Continuum, 1999.
473-474.
“John G. Neihardt,”
Encyclopedia of American Literature. Continuum, 1999.
815-816.
“Vikram Seth,” Encyclopedia
of American Literature. Continuum, 1999.
1018-1019.
“Genevieve Taggard,” Encyclopedia of
American Literature. Continuum, 1999.
1120-1121.
“Allen Tate,” Encyclopedia of American
Literature. Continuum, 1999. 1125-1126.
“Tom Wolfe,” Encyclopedia of American
Literature. Continuum, 1999. 1258-1289.
“Altar,” The Dictionary of Biblical
Imagery. InterVarsity P,1998.
20-21.
“Offering,” The Dictionary of Biblical
Imagery. InterVarsity P, 1998. 602-3.
“Continents of Exile (Mehta),” Issues and Identities in
Literature.
Salem
P, 1997. 278-279.
“Ved Mehta,” Issues
and Identities in Literature. Salem P, 1997.
647-648
“All The King’s Men (Warren),” Issues and Identities in
Literature. Salem P, 1997. 49-50.
“The Man Who Was Thursday (G.K. Chesterton).” Magill’s
Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. Salem
Press, 1996. 592-93.
“Mary Gordon,” The Oxford Companion to
Women’s Writing in the United States, ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Linda
Wagner-Martin. Oxford UP, 1995. 358-59.
“Arnold Dolmetsch,”
The 1890’s: An Encyclopedia of British Culture, ed. George A. Cevasco. Garland, 1993. 165-66.
“Rudyard Kipling.” The
Saint James Press Guide to Biography. St. James P, 1991.
440-42.
“W.H. Auden,” The Saint James Press
Guide to Biography. St. James P, 1991. 32.
Reviews:
Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe. America, February 25, 2013, 25-26.
“Reading Becomes Electric:
The Amazon Knindle.” Papers on
Language & Literature.
What Became of Wystan: Change and Continuity in Auden’s Poetry by Alan Jacobs. Christianity
and Literature 49.2 (2000): 249-250.
Hymns of Prudentius:
The Cathemerinon; or, The Daily Round, translated by David Slavitt. Christianity
and Literature 49.2 (2000): 265-267.
The Lion and the Cross: Early
Christianity in Victorian Novels
by Royal W. Rhodes, Victorian Studies 39.3 (1996): 459-461.
Nancylee Novell Jonza, The
Underground Stream: The Life and Art of Caroline Gordon, American Literature 68.1
(1996): 257.
When We Sing: Conversations with Alice
Parker (Video Tape
published by Liturgy Training Publications), Modern Liturgy, April, 1995: 38-40.
Jim O’Grady, Dorothy Day: With Love
for the Poor, and Brigid O’Shea Merriman, Searching
for Christ: The Spirituality of Dorothy Day, America, July 30-August 6,
1994: 28-30.
N. John Hall, Trollope: A Biography,
Victorian Periodicals Review, Spring 1994, 70-72.
Jane Nardin, He
Knew She Was Right: The Independent Woman in the Novels of Anthony Trollope,
Victorian Periodicals Review, Spring 1993: 51-52.
R.H. Super, The Chronicler of Barsetshire: A Life of Anthony Trollope, Victorian Periodicals
Review, Summer 1991: 92-93.
“Deluxe Music Construction Set for the
Apple Macintosh.” The American Recorder, November 1988: 159.
Conference Papers:
“Pilgrimage and the Contemporary Campus Novel.” American Religion and Literature Society Session at the American Literature Association Annual Conference, Boston, MA, May, 2013
“Faulkner in Schelswig and Jeff Davis's Crown of Thorns.” Seminar on “1963,” Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers Annual Conference, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, April, 2013
“Lipstick, Sex, and C.S. Lewis.” South Central Conference on Christianity & Literature, New Orleans, LA, April, 2010
“A Ph.D. Is Just an Expensive Ticket to
Perdition: The Academic Horror Fiction of James Hynes.” College of Arts and
Sciences Colloquium, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, April 2008.
“‘As Wulfstan
Said on Another Occasion’: The Political Poems of Richard Wilbur,” Poetry and
Politics Conference, University of Stirling,
Scotland, July 2006.
“A.E. Housman's Daughters,”
Poetry and Sexuality Conference, University of Stirling,
Scotland, July 2004.
“To Do or To Suffer: The
Shifting Focus of American Memorials.” Culture/American Culture Association of
the South Convention, New Orelans, LA, September
2004.
“A.E. Housman’s Daughters:
Dorothy Parker and Wendy Cope.” Poetry
and Sexuality Conference, University of Stirling,
Scotland, July 2004.
“Hazel Motes: Punk Rock
Icon.” Flannery O’Connor Symposium at Georgia College &
State University. Milledgeville, CA, October,
2003.
“Tom Wolfe’s Changing Vision of the
Self.” American Literature Association Convention, New Orleans, LA, April
2003.
“Racism and
Works-Righteousness: What Moral Scheme Applies to Flannery O’Connor?”
Conference on the Achievement of Flannery O’Connor sponsored by Århus University, Soenderborg,
Denmark, July 2002. .
“Tom Wolfe’s Religious Vision,”
International Popular Culture Conference, Downing College, Cambridge
University, August 2001.
“Class Markers in American and British
Universities,” International Popular Culture Conference, Sidney Sussex College,
Cambridge University, August 1999.
“Hearing Voices: The Value and Limits of Bakhtinian Readings of Flannery O’Connor,” American
Literature Association Conference, Baltimore, MD, May 1999.
“The M’Naghten
Rule and Victorian Fiction,” 1997 South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Convention, Atlanta, GA, November 1997.
“A Methodist Mass? The Converging
Liturgies of America’s Churches,” International Popular Culture Conference,
University College of Ripon and York St. John, York, England, July 1997.
“Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown, Miss
O’Connor and Mrs. Woolf: Belief, Literary Form, and Literary Generations,” 1997
American Literature Association Convention, Baltimore, MD, May 1997.
“Love and Social Work: Flannery
O’Connor’s Attack on Charity,” 1997 Western Regional Meeting of the Conference
on Christianity and Literature, Seattle University, April 1997; earlier version
presented at the 1995 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention,
Atlanta, GA, November 1995.
“Flannery O’Connor’s Internal
Dialogues,” 1996 Modern
Language Association Convention, Washington, D.C., December 1996.
“‘The Hun is at the Gate’: Rudyard
Kipling’s Poetry of the First World War,” Poetry and History Conference, the
University of Stirling, Scotland, June 1996.
“Daredevil Charity: Love and
Family in O’Connor’s ‘The Comforts of Home,’” Northeast Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature,
Regis College, Weston, MA, October, 1996; earlier version presented at the 1996
American Literature Association Convention, San Diego, May 1996.
“Hymns Ancient and Modern, British
and American,” International Popular Culture Conference, St. Edmund’s Hall,
Oxford, July 1995.
“Running Men and Rural Matriarchs: Gender
Roles in Flannery O’Connor,” Western Meeting of the Conference on Christianity
and Literature, Santa Clara University, May 1995.
“Of Us We Sing: The Changing Focus of
American Hymns,” 1995 American Culture Association Meeting, Philadelphia, PA,
April 1995.
“Driving Away from Depravity: Automobiles
and the Myth of Freedom,” 1994 Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture
Association Meeting, Bates College, October 1994.
“‘Another Room and Another Woman’:
Flannery O’Connor and Feminism,” 1994 Popular Culture/American Culture
Association of the South Meeting, Charlotte, NC, October 1994; earlier version
presented at the Conference on Christianity and Literature Meeting at Oklahoma
University of Science and Arts,
October 1994.
“Coats of Arms and Semiotic Theory,”
Fifth Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Berkeley,
CA, June 1994.
“‘Anchor Chains, Plane Motors, Train
Whistles’: It’s a Wonderful Life and the American Adam,” 1994 Popular
Culture Association Convention, Chicago, IL.
“Red and Yellow Ribbons: AIDS Victims as
War Heroes,” Midwest Popular and Midwest American Culture Associations Meeting,
East Lansing, MI, October 1993.
“Freaks and Whole Men: Flannery O’Connor
and Her Idea of Ultimate Reality and Meaning,” Seventh Biennial Meeting of the
International Society for the Study of Human Ideas on Ultimate Reality and
Meaning, Toronto, August, 1993.
“Two Tailors Make a Man: Cather and Stein
on Immigrant and Sexual Identities,” Fifth International Cather Conference,
Hastings, NE, June, 1993.
“A Wretch Like Who? Bowdlerizing
Traditional Hymns,” 1993 American Culture Association Convention, New Orleans,
April 1993.
“Christ in the Trenches: War and
Sacrifice in Kipling, Owen, and Sassoon,” South Atlantic Modern Language
Association Convention, Knoxville, TN, November 1992.
“‘Sounding Brass’: Artists, Writers, and
Mothers in Mary Gordon’s Men and Angels,” Mid-West Modern Language
Association Convention, St. Louis, MO, October 1992.
“God the Father, Rudyard Kipling, and the
Western Front,” Mideast Christianity and Literature Conference, Grantham, PA,
October 1992.
“TV, AIDS, and Retribution,” Popular
Culture Association Convention, Louisville, KY, March 1992.
“An Uncanonical
Classic: The Politics of the Norton Anthology,” Western Regional Meeting of the
Conference on Christianity and Literature at Seattle University, May 1992;
earlier version presented at the Conference on Christianity and Literature
Meeting at Texas Tech University, September 1991.
“Automobiles, Innocence, and All the
King’s Men,” Robert Penn Warren Commemorative Celebration, Saint Louis
University, March 1991.
“‘And What’s Dead Stays That Way’: The
Soteriology of the Church Without Christ,” 1990 Modern Language Association
Convention.
“‘The Spirit, Lady, is Like an
Automobile’: Flannery O’Connor’s ‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own,’” 1988
Mid-Hudson MLA Conference.
Creative Readings:
“Asissi in Winter,” Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers Annual Conference, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, April, 2013.
“The Baby Jesus and the Angel of Light,” 1995 Mid-West Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature, Greenville College, March 1995.
American Heraldry Society Award for Best
Heraldic Design, 2009
Sabbatical Leave, Southern Illinois
University Edwardsville, 2008
Sabbatical Leave, Southern Illinois
University Edwardsville, 2001
Summer Research Fellowship, Southern
Illinois University Edwardsville, 2000
American Mirror speaker, Missouri Humanities Council, for
1995 & 1996
Sabbatical Leave, Southern Illinois
University at Edwardsville, Spring 1995
Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, 1994
Summer Research Fellowship, Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville, 1994
American Mirror speaker, Missouri Humanities Council, for
1992
Faculty Fourth Quarter Research
Fellowship, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 1990
New Faculty Research Fellowship, Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville, 1988
ACADEMIC
SERVICE
Member, Flannery O’Connor
Review Sarah Gordon Award Committee, 2008
College Board English
Literature Advanced Placement Test Reader, 2008
Member, Conference of Editors
of Learned Journals “Best Special Issue” Award Committee, 2007 & 08.
Board Member, Conference on
Christianity & Literature, 2006-7
Member, College Board English
Literature Advance Placement Examination Test Development Committee, 2005-2008
Advocate, SIUE Grievance
System, 2007
Board Member, Eugene Field
House & St. Louis Toy Museum, 2003-
Board Member, Friends of Sou'wester,
2002-
Executive Coordinator, American
Literature Section, Modern Language Association, 1999-2006
Chair, Nominating Committee, Conference
on Christianity and Literature, 1998
Member, Editorial Board, The Flannery
O’Connor Review, 2001-
Vice-President, American Religion and
Literature Society, 1997-2001
Member, Editorial Board, The Flannery
O’Connor Bulletin, 1997-2001
Planning Committee, English-Speaking
Union Region VI, 2000
Chair, Flannery O’Connor Society’s
Session on the “Letters to ‘A.,’” American Literature Association Convention,
San Diego, CA, May 1998
Manuscript Assessor, Humanities and
Social Sciences Federation of Canada, Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, 1996
Director of Graduate Studies, English
Department, SIUE, 1996
Member, Modern Language Association
Delegate Assembly, 1994-1996
Faculty Advisory Committee to Illinois
Board of Higher Education (ac hoc SIUE representative at several
meetings 1993-1995)
Editor, Papers on Language &
Literature, 1992-2008 (with Jack Voller, 1992-1996)
Reader, SAT-II Writing Test, Educational
Testing Service, 1994, 1996, 1997
Assistant Editor, Victorian
Periodicals Review, 1991-1993
Chair, Special Session: “Art is Not
Enough: Tensions Between Life and Art in 20th-Century American Women
Novelists,” 1992 Mid-West Modern Language Association Convention
Manuscript Reader, Palgrave Macmillan
Publishers, Loyola University Press, The South Atalantic
Review, Papers on Language & Literature (prior to editorship), Victorian
Studies, Christianity & Literature
Editor, Department of English Newsletter,
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 1992-93
Chair, Special Session: “The Figure of the Preacher in Twentieth-Century American Literature,” 1990 Modern Language Association Convention
Selected Committee Assignments at Southern Illinois
University Edwardsville:
University Research and Development Committee, 1999-2000
College of Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee, Spring 1999, Spring 2000
SIUE Teaching Excellence Awards Committee, 1997
SIUE Phi Kappa Phi Chapter Board, 1996-99
Department of English Chair Search Committee, 1994-1995
School of Humanities Executive Committee, 1993-94
School of Humanities Research and Projects Committee, 1992-94 (Chair 1993-94)
School of Humanities Faculty Welfare Committee, 1992-94 (Chair 1993-94)
English Department Executive Committee, 1990-1992, 1996
CURRENT
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Modern
Language Association of America (Life Member)
Association of Literary Scholars,Critics, and Writers (Life Member)
Conference on Christianity and
Literature (Life Member)
Popular Culture Associaton/American
Culture Association (Life Member)
American Studies Association (Life Member)
Heraldry Society (Life
Member)