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.

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.

Lecture/class notes on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eigthy-Four. I’m sharing my teaching notes (rough) for works that may be helpful to others and are widely taught.

Aggregate larp rules are a type of code that runs on humans. Code can be thought of as a linguistic form that is both declarative and imperative; it is both truth and command (Buswell 2009). In aggregate larp, elements of the game’s
diegesis are rendered codic, or playable, allowing players a degree of autonomy from game staff. Through the m…[Read more]

Fantastic tales of rebellious robots and animated artifacts are a permanent fixture in popular culture. What kind of behavior do we expect from such conceptual hybrids in science fiction, nonsense poetry, and surrealist art?

On performativity of Dickens as author in his prefaces

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 the past, Palestinian cinema was dominated by a nationalist discourse revolving around refugee ideology, resulting from the trauma of the lost homeland. As the past is generally static, revisiting it became an exercise in nostalgia. The last decade, however, has seen the emergence of a number of transnational Palestinian films telling stories…[Read more]

An approach to understanding modernism in literary history through the lens of translation by tracing the work of key figures such as Pound, Dos Passos, Jiménez, and Unamuno to translate US and Spanish literatures after the Spanish-American War of 1898.

This course explores major currents of political radicalism both within and outside of the dominant western political tradition. Topics considered may include antidemocratic radicalism, democratic radicalism, Marxian radicalism, radical feminism, radical individualism, and post-colonial radicalism. Readings will include selections from Kant,…[Read more]

This course explores major currents of political radicalism both within and outside of the dominant western political tradition. Topics considered may include antidemocratic radicalism, democratic radicalism, Marxian radicalism, radical feminism, radical individualism, and post-colonial radicalism. Readings will include selections from Kant,…[Read more]

Theories of the public sphere and of imagined political communities of shared reading have had lasting effects on the theoretical conceptualization of Americanist book history, but they also largely overlook the materiality of texts in ways that early and nineteenth-century American readers and writers did not. This essay reads early and…[Read more]

Contribution to “Why Teach Literature?” Program arranged by the forum TM The Teaching of Literature. Gaurav G. Desai, Tulane U, presiding.

Syllabus for digital literature course