For most people in the United States, war is almost always elsewhere. Since the Civil War, declared wars have been engaged on terrains at a distance from the continental space of the nation. Until the attacks on the World Trade towers and the Pentagon in September 2001, many people in the United States perceived war to be conflicts between the…[Read more]

This essay considers Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) from the standpoint of its influential depiction of African Americans as automata. Through Ellison’s other writings, including his review of Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944) and his unpublished drafts of Invisible Man, the essay links the political concerns of the novel with…[Read more]

Reading the representation of New York City in J.D. Robb’s/Nora Roberts’s sci-fi detective romance In Death series via Andrew Karmen’s critique of the 1990s’ New York crime wave/crash narrative pushed by Giuiliani and Bratton’s “broken windows” policing.

This illustrates the psychiatrists who were appointed to Area Commands in the British Army during the Second World War, along with their commanding officers and other psychological staff at that Command. I found it a challenge to pin down people to places and times when researching my PhD – hopefully this will save others some trouble!

This appendix gives a brief summary of the role of some individuals who did work connected with Army psychiatry in Second World War Britain (particularly the development of schemes of officer selection and POW rehabilitation). The data was compiled from biographies, autobiographies, obituaries, census information, letters and articles published in…[Read more]

This map illustrates the locations of Command Psychiatrists, War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs), Civil Resettlement Units (CRUs), Area Psychiatrists, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Neurosis Centres, Military Mental Hospitals, Military Mental Hospitals for Women, and Military Psychiatric Hospitals. I have made the map interactive so different…[Read more]

Review Published in The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 49, March 2016 http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0007087416000182 Both The Open Mind and Shaky Foundations offer interesting insights into scholarship in Cold War North America, documenting a variety of political, institutional and social influences upon the social…[Read more]

Military historians have debated the role of the War Office Selection Board (WOSB) in creating a “People’s Army” and democratising the British military during the Second World War. The role of these boards in reconfiguring the identity of the psychiatrist and the boundaries of their expertise in mid-twentieth century Britain, however, has been lar…[Read more]

In 1939, psychiatrists wrote to the War Office of Britain to offer up their services in the likely event of war. The response? A resounding silence. This unpromising start marked the first words (and the first silence) in a discussion of psychological science that would span the war. The ” trick cyclist ” , or psychiatrist, was a controversial…[Read more]

How we, as Americans, see warfare in our late 20th century mindset.

Because the profession of chaplaincy has significant challenges in balancing ones spiritual life while providing spiritual resiliency to ones Soldiers, a chaplain must have an identity that is God centered, self-knowing and Soldier focused. In our stressful military world, we are often pushed and pulled in different ways. At times these ways can…[Read more]

The warfare in the Napoleonic era is fundamentally similar to warfare practiced today.

The beat generation has been examined as a social movement, literary period, and political statement from many different scholarly perspectives. Through the method of rhetorical criticism I tease out an implicit theory of rhetoric from the writings of the principal beat generation founders—namely Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Offering a r…[Read more]

This essay explores the meaning of Kenneth Burke’s notion of the “poetic corrective” from his book Permanence and Change by examining the ideas of William Carlos Williams, a lifelong friend and frequent correspondent with Burke. Williams’s poetry is also examined as a potential model for the “poetic corrective,” which I suggest is what Burke might…[Read more]

Draft

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.