In late 1991, an editor at the Sunday New York Times Book Review asked me to write a feature article about that uniquely American genre, the Indian captivity narrative. When the editor called, I was dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. I accepted the Times assignment in hopes that writing this article might prove a…[Read more]

This handout explains in clear and simple terms what a strong thesis statement should–and should not be. Examples of the four main types of ‘weak’ thesis statements are given, along with four corresponding ‘strong’ thesis statements. I have successfully used this handout in workshopping students’ thesis ideas.

A review of Richard Kegler’s, The Aries Press of Eden, New York.

Lecture/class notes on Modernism. I’m sharing my teaching notes (rough) for works that may be helpful to others and are widely taught.

Lecture/class notes on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I’m sharing my teaching notes (rough) for works that may be helpful to others and are widely taught.

Lecture/class notes on Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.” I’m sharing my teaching notes (rough) for works that may be helpful to others and are widely taught.

DRAFT of introd chapter of work following the trail of allusions, consequences, etc. that ensues from considering Hawthorne’s discovery narrative in “The Custom-House” as fully implicated in the narrative-arc of events begun with Hester Prynne’s revelation of her elaborate embroidery in 1642.

This paper offers a synthesis and critique of the existing academic literature on Gene Luen Yang’s AAmerican Born Chinese and an overview of Asian American alternative comics. It examines the range of literary and linguistic sources which Yang draws upon in his collage of Chinoiserie and Japonism. It presents the argument that existing criticism h…[Read more]

This paper offers a synthesis and critique of the existing academic literature on Gene Luen Yang’s AAmerican Born Chinese and an overview of Asian American alternative comics. It examines the range of literary and linguistic sources which Yang draws upon in his collage of Chinoiserie and Japonism. It presents the argument that existing criticism h…[Read more]

In setting his 1898 tale In the Cage in a telegraph office, Henry James was adapting and investigating a metaphor that earlier novelists had used for the workings of fiction. As invoked by writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens, the idealized image of the electric telegraph hints at some of the formal and ideological properties of…[Read more]

In setting his 1898 tale In the Cage in a telegraph office, Henry James was adapting and investigating a metaphor that earlier novelists had used for the workings of fiction. As invoked by writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens, the idealized image of the electric telegraph hints at some of the formal and ideological properties of…[Read more]

The extracodical stanzas of John Lydgate’s Testament and “Quis Dabit Meo Capiti Fontem Lacrimarum” in the Clopton chantry chapel of the Great Church of Holy Trinity, Long Melford, not only are two intriguing witnesses differing in presentation and language from the manuscript copies but also can be considered as part of a rhetorical program where…[Read more]