Roop Distinguished Professor of English
Member, Historical Advisory Board of the World War One Centennial Commission

Interests:  
Twentieth-century British and American literature; creative nonfiction; history of aesthetics; war, commemoration, memory, and the arts

Academic Background: 
Roop Professor of English, beginning January 2014
Professor of English, 1996-present
Associate Professor of English, James Madison University, 1989-1996
Assistant Professor of English, James Madison University, 1983-1989
Doctor of Philosophy, English, University of New Mexico, 1983
Master of Fine Arts, Iowa Writer's Workshop, University of Iowa, 1977
Assistant d'anglais, Lycée Carnot, Dijon, France, 1972-73
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, French, Lawrence University of Wisconsin, 1972
Secondary degree, Collège du Léman, Versoix, Geneva, Switzerland, 1968

Publications:
Criticism
“Kitsch, Commemoration, and Mourning in the Aftermath of the Great War.”  Chapter 16, The Great War: From Memory to History. Ed. Jonathan Vance.  Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier UP, 2015.

“Nature, Second Nature, and One of Ours.  Willa Cather Newsletter and Review. 57.3 (Winter-Spring 2015): 12-16.

“Willa Cather, the Nabi of Red Cloud.” Willa Cather and Aestheticism.  Eds. Sarah Cheney Watson and Ann Moseley.  Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP (2012): Ch. 8, 111-124.

“Changing Trains:  Metaphors of Transfer in Willa Cather.”   Cather Studies: Willa Cather and Modern Cultures. 9 (2011): 67-92.

“’Gone out is part of sanity’:  Reading Ivor Gurney’s Shell Shock”.  Journal of the Ivor Gurney Society  13 (2007): 175-192.

"The Ship We Come Over On: Fact, Image, Myth, and the Self in American Immigration.”  Immigration, Assimilation, Cultural Identity: Conference Proceedings.  CD-ROM.  Harrisonburg, VA:  James Madison University, 2007. 
 
 “Getting It Right by Getting It Wrong: Maya Lin’s Misreading of Edwin Luytens Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.”  Crossings: A Counter-Disciplinary Journal 7 (2004/2005): 47-69.

“The Berles Position Military Cemetery, 1917-1918: An Essay on Margins and Memory."  Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science 12:1/2 (2005): 161-187.

"Character, Compromise, and Idealism in Willa Cather's Gardens."  Cather Studies 5: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination.  Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 2003: 291-307. 

"The undiscovered country from whose bourn": William Shakespeare and Joseph Conrad in Frederic Manning's The Middle Parts of Fortune.  Precursors and Aftermath.   I. 1 (2000): 78-94.

"One More Reason We Can't Stop Tugging Over Raymond Carver's Body."  Q. W. E. R. T. Y. 9. Pau: Université de Pau, 1999: 149-155.  

"Fascism, Phoria, and the Symbolic Destiny of Abel Tiffauges."  The Journal of Narrative Techique  22.2 (Spring 1992): 105-13.

"Raymond Carver and the Menace of Minimalism."  Rpt. in Raymond Carver: A Study of the Short Fiction.  Ed. Ewing Campbell.  Boston: Twayne, 1992.

"The Garden and the Self in Great War Autobiography."  a/b: Auto/biography Studies 5.2 (Fall 1990): 140-51.

"The Edge of Night: Figures of Change in Henry Green's Concluding."  Twentieth-Century Literature  36.1 (1990): 10-22.

"Raymond Carver and the Menace of Minimalism."  CEA Critic.  52.1-2 (Fall 1989-Winter 1990): 62-73.

"Self-Effacement as Revelation: Narration and Art in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time."  The Journal of Modern Literature.  15.4 (Spring 1989): 519-29.

"Cryptic Allusions and the Moral of the Story: The Case of Joseph Conrad's 'The Secret Sharer'."   The Journal of Narrative Technique  17.1 (1987): 115-30.

"'The Calm,' 'A Small, Good Thing,' and 'Cathedral': Raymond Carver and the Rediscovery of Human Worth."  Studies in Short Fiction 23.3 (1986): 287-96.

"Missing the Train: Raymond Carver's Sequel to John Cheever's 'The Five-Forty-Eight'."  Studies in Short Fiction 22.3 (1985): 345-347.

Reviews and Miscellaneous:
Dream, Death, and the Self.  J. J. Valberg.  Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.  Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science 14: 3-4 (2008): 379-384.

Forgiving Dr. Mengele.  Bob Hercules and Cheri Pugh.  VHS.  First Run Features, 2006. Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science 14:1-2  (2007): 183-185.

Breaking Through: Essays, Journals, and Travelogues of Edward Ricketts. Katharine A. Rodger.Berkeley: U California P, 2006.  Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science 14:1-2 (2007): 156-159.

“The Things They Carried.”  Tim O’Brien.   Montpelier (Fall 2004): 15-16.

"Shellshock." In History in Dispute, Volume 9: World War I, Second Series.  Dennis Showalter, ed.  Columbia, SC: Manly, 2002.

Time and Anthony Powell: A Critical Study.  Robert Selig.  Journal of Modern Literature19:3/4 (1996): 516-517.

Reminiscent Scrutinies: Memory in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. L. A. Frost. Journal of Modern Literature 18:2/3 (1995): 310-311.

Merchants of Hope: British Middlebrow Writers and the First World War, 1919-1939. Rosa Maria Bracco.   South Central Review  11.4 (Winter 1994): 62-64.

Translator, with Jacqueline Berben-Masi:  Arlette Bouloumie, "Writing and Modernism: Michel Tournier's Friday."  Style 26.3 (Fall 1992): 447-56.

"Andre Dubus," "Timothy Mo," and "Tobias Wolff."  Contemporary Novelists.  London: St. James Press, 1992.
  
"W. H. Auden,"  "William Gass," "Galway Kinnell," "Minimalism," and "World War I."  Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. George Perkins, ed.  New York: Harper and Row, 1991.

"The Ethics of Fiction."  Essay review of Wayne Booth's The Company We Keep.  University of Hartford Studies in Literature.  21.1 (1989): 45-47.

Essays:
“The Geography of the Imagination.”  Under consideration.

"Where Faith Comes From." Rubber City. 1.1. (2001): 55-66.

“Daily Miracles: Teaching Creative Writing in the Age of Complacency.”  Gardy Loo 2.1 (October 1997): 3-4, 21-23.

"Love Letter from the Lonely Middle."  The Georgia Review.  48.2 (Summer 1994): 225-238. 

Fiction:
"What You Can See in PA."  New Virginia Review.  8 (1991): 42-53.

"A Practical Problem."  The American Literary Review 1.1 (1990): 21-32.

"The Girl Next Door."  In Earnest.  2.1 (1989): 1-18.

"Las Golondrinas."  Shenandoah.  39.2 (1989): 32-50.

"Rita."  In Earnest 1.1 (1987): 36-45.

"Small Comfort." The Iowa Review 16.1 (1986): 73-82.

"The Most Beautiful Sister in the World."  The Antietam Review 1986: 19-25.

"First Principles."  Empty Shelves 2.1 (Fall/Winter, 1985-86): 13-18.

"Honesty."  Story Quarterly 20 (1985): 61-66.

"The Coldest Winter Ever."  New America 5.1 (1984): 26-31.

"Brewster Lake."  Conceptions/Southwest 5 (1983): 52-55.

"This Little Piggy."  Conceptions/Southwest 2 (1979): 37-43.

"Papa and I Polish the Comet."  Iowa Journal of Literary Studies 1.1 (1977): 133-55.

The Gravedigger.  [novella] Appleton: In the Shade, 1971.

Poetry:
"In Detroit" and "Mission Statement."  In Earnest 1.2 (1988): 34-35.

"Topography."  Reprinted in Keener Sounds.  Stanley Lindberg and Stephen Corey, eds.  Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.

"Topography."  Reprinted in The Georgia Review: Fortieth Anniversary Poetry Retrospective 40.3 (1987): 662.

"For Lovers Whose Addresses I Cannot Find," "Elegy for a Naturalist," and "The Earthquake at San Xavier."  The Louisville Review 20 (Spring 1986): 32-34.

"Summer Night," "Chamber Music," and "Cat's Binge."  Akros Review  11 (1985): 11-14.

"Topography."  The Georgia Review 37.3 (1983): 305.

"Nostalgia."  Conceptions/Southwest 5 (1983): 65.

"The Manitoulin Before the Squall."  The Lake Superior Review 10  (1979): 26.

"Poeme I."  Tropos 3 (1970): 18.

"My Purple Crayon." The Maglet (New Delhi, 1963): np.

Recent Papers and Other Public Presentations:
“The Rhetoric of Death and Remembrance: National Vernaculars and the Cemeteries of the Great War.”  Conference on Literature, Memory, and the First World War.  United States Military Academy, West Point.  11-14 September 2014.

“Nature, Second Nature, and One of Ours.”  Conference on Mapping Literary Landscapes: Environments and Ecosystems.  59th Willa Cather Spring Conference.  Red Cloud,  Nebraska 5-7 June 2014.

“Willa Cather and Mabel Dodge Luhan: Elective Landscapes and Unexpected Affinities.” Fourteenth International Conference on Willa Cather. Northern Arizona University. 17-22 June 2013.

“Kitsch and the Arrest of Collective Mourning.” The Great War: From Memory to History. University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. 10-12 November 2011.

“New Kind of Hero: Football and the Recasting of Manhood in Early Twentieth-Century Mid-America.” East Meets West conference.  James Madison University.  25-26 March 2010.

“Was There a Powell Generation?”  Invited lecture at 5th Biennial Anthony Powell Conference.  Georgetown University,  10-12 September 2009.

“Changing Trains:  Willa Cather’s Chicago.”  Willa Cather Conference, UI Chicago, 23-25 June 2009.

“Freedom and Endless Exile in Hannah Arendt.”  The Space Between Conference.  Northwestern University.  13-14 June 2008.

“The Cultural Construction of Psychiatric Injury in the Twentieth Century.”  Conference on War and Peace: The Eternal Swing.  James Madison University.  3-4 April 2008.

“Kitsch, Modernity, and the Deathworks.”  Keynote lecture.  JMU EGO conference, April 2008.

"Ivor Gurney's Shellshock."  Conference on Ivor Gurney.  Cambridge University.  8-9 September 2007.

"How Shellshock Became PTSD."  The Space Between Conference.   United States Naval Academy.  7-9 June 2007.