Most critics of contemporary literature have reached a consensus that what was once called “postmodernism” is over and that its signature modes—metafiction and irony—are on the wane. This is not the case, however, with videogames. In recent years, a number of self-reflexive games have appeared, exemplified by Davey Wreden’s The Stanley Parable (…[Read more]

This paper argues that there is a need to look beyond what is merely “homeward” in the work of Thomas Wolfe. I take up Wai Chee Dimock’s expansive conception of American literature as “a crisscrossing set of pathways, open-ended and ever multiplying, weaving in and out of other geographies, other languages and cultures,” demonstrating how Thomas…[Read more]

In this brief paper, I first introduce Gwendolyn Brook’s “The Anniad,” a 43-stanza ballad at the center of her 1949 Pulitzer-prize winning collection, Annie Allen. Next, I make a case that “The Anniad” is informed by a medievalism combining Brooks’ girlhood reading and the physical environment of Bronzeville, her Chicago neighborhood. Finally, I…[Read more]

The June 1888 issue of the Phonographic World magazine presented John Pynchon, an ancestor of Thomas, as “The First American Shorthand Reporter”. While most biographical criticism to date of Thomas Pynchon has focused on the cameo appearance of a thinly veiled William Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow, we here set out further historical infor…[Read more]

The article addresses a topic of pressing but long-­standing concern to many in the higher education community: the disproportionately low number of African American faculty members in English, assessing the facts of the situation and how they might be addressed effectively.

Compiled to support the work of the ADE Ad Hoc Committee on the
Status of African American Faculty Members in English, this scholarship review is not comprehensive. Much of the relevant literature treats diversity and equity issues in higher education broadly, a consequence of the difficulty of obtaining reliable data on specific disciplines and…[Read more]

Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature is the first anthology exploring human cognition and literature in the context of early modern Spanish culture. It includes the leading voices in the field, along with the main themes and directions that this important area of study has been producing. The book begins with an overview of the…[Read more]

Būqālah refers both to a ceramic pitcher as well as to poems ritually embedded in the traditional, favorite, divinatory pastime associated with women city dwellers of specific Algerian towns such as Blida,Cherchell, Tlemcen, Constantine, and Algiers. This essay considers the shift from orality to a written archive of French and Algerian c…[Read more]

attempt to bring the horrors of the indo-china war to the most intimate part of women, 1967, xuan loc, rvn

attempt to bring the horrors of the indo-china war to the most intimate part of women, 1967, xuan loc, rvn

This syllabus was my third version of a course aimed at introducing the digital humanities at an undergraduate level. The course was organized around four projects, each of which was oriented by a theoretical reading: mapping a novel; text analysis with archival sources; reading a novel collaboratively with courses at other colleges and…[Read more]

This syllabus was my second version of a course aimed at introducing the digital humanities at an undergraduate level. The course was organized around three projects: mapping a novel; text analysis with archival sources; reading a novel collaboratively with courses at other colleges and universities while building a multimedia response; and text…[Read more]