Literary Theory
The English department offers a strong and diverse tradition of engaging various practices of literary and cultural theory, including narrative theory, feminism and queer theory, psychoanalysis, marxism and various modes of historicism and cultural engagement, deconstruction, postcolonial, transnational, and globalization theory, and legal theory. Individual faculty profiles describe specific interests in these regards.
Our Faculty
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Jonathan Auerbach Professor |
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Ralph Bauer Associate Professor |
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Tita Chico Associate Professor Associate Dean for Fellowships and Awards, The Graduate School |
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William A. Cohen Professor Chair |
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Michael Israel Associate Professor |
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Linda Kauffman Professor Distinguished Scholar-Teacher |
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Matthew Kirschenbaum Associate Professor Associate Director, MITH |
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Lee Konstantinou Assistant Professor |
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Marilee Lindemann Associate Professor Director, LGBT Studies |
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Carla Peterson Professor |
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Sangeeta Ray Professor Director, Graduate Studies |
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Brian Richardson Professor |
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Martha Nell Smith Professor Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, ADVANCE Fellow; Chair, University Senate (2012-2013) |
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Jesse Oak Taylor Visiting Assistant Professor American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellow |
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Christina Walter Assistant Professor |
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Orrin Wang Professor |
Faculty Bookshelf
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Professor Brian Richardson Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates (Coauthored) Ohio State University Press, 2012 |
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Associate Professor Tita Chico Atlantic Worlds in the Long Eighteenth Century: Seduction and Sentiment Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 |
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Professor Orrin Wang Romantic Sobriety: Sensation, Revolution, Commodification, History The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011 |
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Associate Professor Michael Israel The Grammar of Polarity: Pragmatics, Sensitivity, and the Logic of Scales Cambridge University Press, 2011 |
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Professor Jonathan Auerbach Dark Borders: Film Noir and American Citizenship Duke University Press, 2011 |
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Associate Professor Tita Chico Journal Editor, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation Penn Press, 2011 |
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Professor Carla Peterson Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City Yale University Press, 2011 |
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Associate Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum Digital Forensics and Born-Digital Content in Cultural Heritage Collections Council on Library and Information Resources, 2010 |
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Professor Sangeeta Ray Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: In Other Words Wiley Blackwell, 2009 |
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Associate Professor Ralph Bauer Editor, with Jose Antonio Mazzotti, Creole Subjects in the Colonial Americas: Empires, Texts, Identities University of North Carolina Press, 2009 |
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Professor William A. Cohen Embodied: Victorian Literature and the Senses University of Minnesota Press, 2008 |
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Professor Martha Nell Smith Co-editor, Emily Dickinson's Correspondences: A Born-Digital Textual Inquiry The University of Virginia Rotunda Press, 2008 |
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Professor Brian Richardson Narrative Beginnings: Theories and Practices University of Nebraska Press, 2008 |
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Professor Martha Nell Smith Co-editor, with Mary Loeffelholz, A Companion to Emily Dickinson Wiley-Blackwell, 2008 |
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Associate Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination MIT Press, 2008 |
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Professor Jonathan Auerbach Body Shots: Early Cinema's Incarnations University of California Press, 2007 |
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Professor Marshall Grossman Editor, Reading Renaissance Ethics Routledge, 2007 |
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Professor Brian Richardson Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction Ohio State University Press, 2006 |
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Professor Jonathan Auerbach Editor, The Iron Heel, by Jack London Penguin, 2006 |
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Associate Professor Marilee Lindemann Editor, The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather Cambridge University Press, 2005 |
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Professor William A. Cohen Co-editor, with Ryan Johnson, Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life University of Minnesota Press, 2005 |
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Associate Professor Tita Chico Designing Women: The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Culture 2005 |
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Associate Professor Ralph Bauer An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru
By Titu Cusi Yupanqui University of Colorado Press, 2005 |
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Associate Professor Ralph Bauer The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures: Empire, Travel, Modernity Cambridge University Press, 2003 |
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Professor Brian Richardson Editor, Narrative Dynamics: Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frames Ohio State University Press, 2002 |
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Professor Orrin Wang Fantastic Modernity: Dialectical Readings in Romanticism and Theory Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000 |
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Professor Sangeeta Ray En-Gendering India: Woman and Nation in Colonial and Postcolonial Narratives Duke University Press, 2000 |
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Associate Professor Marilee Lindemann Willa Cather: Queering America Columbia University Press, 1999 |
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Professor Linda Kauffman Bad Girls and Sick Boys: Fantasies in Contemporary Art and Culture University of California Press, 1998 |
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Professor Martha Nell Smith Co-editor, with Ellen Louise Hart, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson Paris Press, 1998 |
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Professor Marshall Grossman The Story of All Things: Writing the Self in English Renaissance Narrative Poetry Duke University Press, 1998 |
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Professor Marshall Grossman Editor, Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre, and the Canon University of Kentucky Press, 1998 |
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Associate Professor Marilee Lindemann Editor, O Pioneers! by Willa Cather Oxford University Press, 1997 |
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Professor Brian Richardson Unlikely Stories: Causality and the Nature of Modern Narrative University of Delaware Press, 1997 |
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Professor Jonathan Auerbach Editor, Northland Stories, by Jack London Penguin, 1997 |
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Professor Jonathan Auerbach Male Call: Becoming Jack London Duke University Press, 1996 |
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Professor William A. Cohen Sex Scandal: The Private Parts of Victorian Fiction Duke University Press, 1996 |
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Professor Carla Peterson "Doers of the Word": African-American Women Speakers & Writers in the North (1830-1880) Oxford University Press, 1995 |
Upcoming Events
Friday, September 27, 2013
2115 Tawes Hall
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
9:00 am Soundings Conference
TBD
News
May 23, 2013
Congratulations to Professor Marilee Lindemann, who has been awarded the Kirwan Undergraduate Education Award for 2013.
May 22, 2013
Jamie Lee's remarks concerning the value of her English major are here:
May 22, 2013
It is with great pleasure that the Department of English announces the following tenure and promotion news.
May 17, 2013
The English Department is delighted to announce the following placements of recent PhDs in 2013.
May 15, 2013
Congratulations to Christina Walter and Vessela Valiavitcharska, winners of this year's GEO Faculty Awards.
May 9, 2013
It is with great pleasure that the Department announces the recipients of the various graduate fellowships and awards for the next academic year.
May 8, 2013
The MFA Program in Creative Writing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize and the Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize.
May 8, 2013
Congratulations to Amanda Bailey on the publication of her new book, Of Bondage: Debt, Property, and Personhood in Early Modern England.
May 7, 2013
An informal reception hosted by Provost Rankin and and Vice President O'Shea was held May 1 to celebrate the scholarly research accomplishments of faculty over the past year. An impressive list of faculty from the Department of English were among those recognized.
May 3, 2013
The Program in Comparative Literature is pleased to recognize Martin as the winner of the second annual John Fuegi Essay Contest.
Prospective Students
Alongside the many occasional events and lectures concerning "theory" featured in the English Department, and highlighted on the home page of its website and its calendar, advanced students are also especially recommended to consider the special theory colloquia, often featuring distinguished guests, offered each semester by rotating faculty members
