Associate Professor of English, Rowan University (2015-present)
Assistant Professor of English, Rowan University (2010-15)
Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University (2006-10)
Ph.D., English Literature, Stanford University (2006)
M.A., English Literature, Stanford University (2004)
B.A., magna cum laude, English Literature, Princeton University (1999)
Time Release Award for Research, Rowan University (2010-present)
Nominee, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award (2023)
Modernist Studies Association Travel Grant (2019)
Research Sabbatical (competitive award), Rowan University (2018-19)
Wall of Fame Award for Teaching, Rowan University (2017)
Wall of Fame Award for Advising, Rowan University (2017)
NEH Summer Stipend nominee, Rowan University (2012)
Francis R. Lax Faculty Development Grant, Rowan University (2011)
Summer Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Rowan University (2011)
Assistant Professor Travel Grant, Rowan University (2011)
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Introduction to the Humanities Program, Stanford University (2006-10)
Alden Dissertation Prize, Stanford University English Department (2007)
Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2005-06)
Mrs. Giles Whiting Dissertation Fellowship (2004-05)
Stanford University English Department Fellowship (2000-04)
The James C. Donnell II, Class of 1932, Scholarship, Princeton University (1998-99)
The H. Robert Samstag Fund Scholarship, Princeton University (1997-98)
The Douglas Marshall Littleton War Memorial Scholarship, Princeton University (1996-97)
The Stanley L. Adler, Class of 1915, Scholarship, Princeton University (1995-96)
The Class of 1894 Memorial Scholarship, Princeton University (1995-96)
The nineteenth- and twentieth-century novel; narrative and narratology; literature and technology; Victorian literature and culture; literary naturalism; literary modernism and postmodernism; postcolonial and Anglophone literature; literary theory; pedagogy and collaborative technologies.
BOOKS
Peer reviewed
Narrative Machine: The Naturalist, Modernist, and Postmodernist Novel (Routledge, 2019; paperback 2020)
This work advances a new theory of the novel, identifying a crucial link between narrative innovation and the historical process of mechanization. In the late nineteenth century, the novel grapples with a new and increasingly acute problem: In its attempt to represent the colossal power of modern machinery—the steam-driven machines of the Industrial Revolution, the electrical machines of the modern city, and the atomic and digital machines developed after the Second World War—it encounters the limitations of traditional representative strategies. Beginning in the naturalist novel, the machine is typically portrayed as a mythic monster, and though that monster represents a potentially horrific reality—the superhuman power of the modern machine—it also disrupts the documentary objectives of narrative realism (the dominant mode of nineteenth-century fiction). The mechanical monster, realistic and yet at odds with traditional realist strategies, tears the form of the novel apart. In doing so, it unleashes a series of innovations that disclose, critique, and contest the force of mechanization—the innovations associated with literary naturalism, modernism, and postmodernism.
In progress
Writing the "Way Out": Language, Technology, and Anticolonial Modernism
Conceived as a sequel to my first book, Narrative Machine, this work examines the impact of technology on the form of the anticolonial novel. Whereas machines in American and European novels are typically figured, beginning in the late nineteenth century, as monstrous or superhuman—as a force beyond the control of its creators, and beyond the representative power of realist narrative—the problem posed by technology in so much French, English, and American fiction becomes a potential resource in the anticolonial novels of modernist and postcolonial authors: a means of opposing empire from within, and by means of its own instruments. In the works of such writers as Joseph Conrad, Jean Rhys, E. M. Forster, Mulk Raj Anand, Doris Lessing, Michael Ondaatje, and Kazuo Ishiguro, the apparatus of imperialism (steamships, railways, telegraphs, etc.) organizes narratives that embrace machines as a way of opposing, transforming, or superseding the coercive forces those machines represent. In doing so, they invent a narrative tradition that, while written in English—itself an instrument of colonial domination—exceeds the control of its erstwhile captors.
ARTICLES
Peer reviewed
"Waste Lands: The Lost Infrastructure of Jean Rhys's 'Temps Perdi.'" Feminist Modernist Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, July 2023, pp. 101-112.
"Conrad's Imperial Machine: Nostromo." The Conradian, vol. 45, no. 1, Spring 2020, pp. 38-56.
"Romancing the Machine: American Naturalism in Transatlantic Context." The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism, edited by Keith Newlin, Oxford UP, 2011, pp. 21-36.
"Joyce's Utopian Machine: The Anti-Tyrannical Mechanics of Ulysses." James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 1, Fall 2010, pp. 55-74.
"Thomas Hardy and the Machine: The Mechanical Deformation of Narrative Realism in Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 64, no. 2, Sept. 2009, pp. 225-48.
"Natural Monsters: The Genesis and Deformation of the 'Experimental Novel'." Studies in American Naturalism, vol. 2, no. 1, Summer 2007, pp. 3-17.REVIEWS
Review of Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (by Iris Jamahl Dunkle). Studies in American Naturalism, vol. 15, no. 2, Winter 2020, pp. 242-46.
Review of The Freak-Garde: Extraordinary Bodies and Revolutionary Art in America (by Robin Blyn). Modernism/modernity, vol. 22, no. 4, Nov. 2015, pp. 833-35.
Review of Adventures in Realism (ed. Matthew Beaumont). Modern Philology, vol. 108, no. 4, May 2011, pp. E279-82.EDITING AND ANNOTATION
Discovering Dickens 2004: editor and annotator for the online and print versions of Stanford University's re-serialization of A Tale of Two Cities. Jan.-April 2004.
Discovering Dickens 2002-03: editor and annotator for the online and print versions of Stanford University's re-serialization of Great Expectations. Dec. 2002-April 2003.
"Mulk Raj Anand and the Revolutionary Machine." Works in Progress Colloquium (WiPC), Rowan English Department (March 2024).
"Paving the Way to Revolution: The Street in Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable." Panel paper for MSA Brooklyn (October 2023).
"Coolie: British Infrastructure and the Revolutionary Machine." Seminar paper, Modernist Studies Association (MSA) "Between the Acts" conference, April 4, 2022 (online).
"The Lost Infrastructure of Jean Rhys's 'Temps Perdi.'" Panel paper, MSA Chicago (paper accepted but conference [Nov. 2021] canceled due to COVID-19).
"An Automotive Passage to India." Panel paper, MSA Toronto (2019).
Narrative Machine. Book launch presentation, Rowan University Bookstore (April 9, 2019).
Plenary panelist for roundtable, "Making Monsters" (invited). English Graduate Student Association Conference. Rutgers University, Camden (April 6, 2019).
"How to Write and Publish an Academic Book." Invited talk, English Graduate Student Association. Rutgers University, Camden (March 12, 2019).
"Conrad's Imperial Machine: Nostromo." Seminar paper, MSA Columbus (2018).
"Jean Rhys and the Imperial Machine." Works in Progress Colloquium (WiPC), Rowan University English Department (Mar. 23, 2018).
"Talk Back" panelist, with Dr. Claire Falck, Ms. Samantha Wagner, Ms. Kristy Joe Slough, and Dr. Timothy Vaden, following Rowan University Theater & Dance and Music performance of Nine (April 14, 2016).
"Harmonica, Kazoo: The Subversive Instruments of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow." Panel paper, Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present conference (ASAP) Greenville (2015).
"The Auto-biography of Alice B. Toklas: Gertrude Stein and the Model T." Seminar paper, MSA Pittsburgh (2014).
"Perec's Literal Machines: W or The Memory of Childhood." Panel paper, International Conference on Narrative (Narrative) Boston (2014).
"'Behind the hieroglyphic streets': The Digital Code of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49." Panel paper, MSA Las Vegas (2012).
"Deus ex Plastic: Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions." WiPC, Rowan University English Department (Feb. 17, 2012).
"The Airplane Also Rises: Hemingway and Machine Violence." Seminar paper, MSA Buffalo (2011).
"Proust's Telephone: The Impossible Voice of Narrative." Panel paper, Narrative St. Louis (2011).
"Modernist Studies in the Nuclear Age: Postmodernist Narrative and Technology." Seminar paper, MSA Victoria (2010).
"Septimus's Gramophone: Listening to Mrs. Dalloway's Talking Machines." Seminar paper, MSA Montreal (2009).
"Thomas Hardy and the Monster Machine: Narrative Deformation in Tess of the d'Urbervilles." IHUM Research Colloquium, Stanford University (May 1, 2009).
"What Is Naturalism?" and "What Is Naturalism, Again?" Round-table panelist at the ALA Symposium on American Literary Naturalism. Newport Beach (Oct. 5-6, 2007).
"Thomas Hardy and the Moderns: Victorian Novelist, 20th-century Poet." Course lecture for Literature into Life: Alternative Worlds, Stanford University (Spring 2007).
"Thomas Hardy and the Machine: Socio-Narrative Distortion in Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Graduate panel, Dickens Universe 2006, UC Santa Cruz (Aug. 2, 2006).
"A Tale of Two Suburbs: Geography and Narrative Distribution in Dickens's Revolutionary Novel." Panel paper, Literary London 2005, Kingston University (2005).
Discovering Dickens Panel, Community Day: A Discussion of A Tale of Two Cities; with Professors Robert Polhemus and Linda Paulson. Stanford University (Apr. 4, 2004).
"Nilo Cruz's Lorca in a Green Dress: Surrealism, Symbolism, and Political Commitment." Course lecture, Learning Theater: From Audience to Critic at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Stanford, Summer 2003).
Discovering Dickens Panel, Community Day: A Discussion of Great Expectations; with Professors Robert Polhemus, Alex Woloch, and Linda Paulson. Stanford University (Apr. 6, 2003).
"Jane Eyre and Contemporaneous Views of Insanity." Course lecture for Two Victorian Autobiographies: Jane Eyre and David Copperfield, Stanford University (Spring 2001).
Rowan University (2010-present)
Introductory literature course for non-majors: Introduction to British Literature: Women on Fire
Introductory methods course for majors: Critical Methods for English Majors I
Introductory methods course (survey of literary theory) for majors: Critical Methods for English Majors II: Approaching Howards End
Upper-level British literature survey: British Literature I: From the Early Medieval Epic to the Rise of the Novel
Upper-level British literature survey: British Literature II: From the Romantic Poets to the Postcolonial Novel
Upper-level elective: English Novel
Senior Seminar: Anxieties of Empire: Monsters and Monstrosity in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel
Senior Seminar: Science Fiction
Senior Seminar: Wandering Modernism: The Twentieth-Century British and Postcolonial Novel
English Department Research Assistantship: The Mahabharata
Honors Independent Study: Jean Rhys and the Critical Tradition
Honors Independent Study: E. M. Forster: Art and Discursive Power
Directed reading for MA student in Writing: The Romantics: Life and Art
Stanford University, Postdoctoral Fellow (2006-10)
Introduction to the Humanities: A Life of Thought or Action? Debates in Western Literature and Philosophy
Introduction to the Humanities: Journeys
Introduction to the Humanities: Humans and Machines
Introduction to the Humanities: Literature into Life: Alternative Worlds
Continuing Studies: Anxieties of the British Empire: Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and DraculaStanford University, Instructor/Teaching Assistant (2001-03)
Sophomore College Assistant: Learning Theater: From Audience to Critic at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Teaching Assistant: The Literature of Sensibility and Madness (Prof. Denise Gigante)
Instructor, Program in Writing and Rhetoric: What s Funny? Comedy, Commentary, and Composition
Teaching Assistant: Two Victorian Autobiographies: Jane Eyre and David Copperfield (Prof. Linda Paulson)Additional Teaching (2003-05)
English Composition: People and Places: Where We Live and How We Live, City College of San Francisco
English Composition: Developing an Academic Style, City College of San Francisco
Dickens Universe 2003 (discussion leader): The Old Curiosity Shop, University of California, Santa Cruz
Professional Service
Panel chair and moderator (invited), The One vs. the Many at 20. Symposium in honor of Alex Woloch, Yale University (April 26, 2024).
Editorial board, Studies in American Naturalism (member 2020-present).
Reader (peer review) for Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2024).
Panel organizer, "The Street as Infrastructure of Liberation in McKay, Anand, and Vera," MSA Brooklyn (2023).
Reader (peer review) for Feminist Modernist Studies (2023).
Reader (peer review) for Studies in American Naturalism (2013-present).
Reader (peer review) for Studia Philologia (2022).
Panel organizer, "Caribbean Infrastructure: Memory and Belated Modernist Forms," MSA Chicago (panel accepted but conference [Nov. 2021] canceled due to COVID-19).
Marketing reviewer for Norton Critical Edition of Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time (ed. Gerald Kennedy) (2021).
Reader (peer review) for The Explicator (2019).
Organizer (invited) for two roundtables, "Definitional Naturalism" and "Naturalism and Its Legacies," for the Symposium on American Literary Naturalism and Its Descendants (Reykjavik, 2019).
Reader (peer review) for Routledge Focus series (2019).
Panel chair, "Fiction, History, and Violence." Narrative Boston (2014).
Reader (peer review) for Studies in the Novel (2010-12).
Panel chair, "Modernism and Forms of Totality." MSA Las Vegas (2012).
Panel moderator, "Form, Culture, Interpretation." Narrative Las Vegas (2012).
Reader (peer review) for Victorian Review (2011).
Panel organizer and chair, "Proust's Implausible Networks: Music, Telepathy, Gaydar," Narrative St. Louis (2011).
Rowan University: Service to the University
Fulbright Campus Committee (for one undergraduate candidate, Fall 2023).
Rowan University Revitalization Committee (2020-22).
Teacher Education Advisory Council (2014-18; 2021-22).
Task Force on the Future of the WI and LIT Requirements at Rowan (2019-20).
"English Department Assessment and Praxis II," presentation (invited) for Teacher Education Advisory Council (Spring 2020).
College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean's Search Committee (2015-16).
Senate Curriculum Committee (2014-15).
Senate Technological Resources Committee (2012-14).
Alternate delegate for English Department to University Senate (2010-14).Rowan University: Service to the College
College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) Committee on Supporting Associate Professors in Their Path to Promotion (2021-22).
CHSS Graduate Studies Committee (Spring 2020-2022).
CHSS Career Development Committee (2020-22).
CHSS Career Development Subcommittee for Alumni Events (2020-22).
CHSS Long-Term Experiential Learning Committee (Spring 2020).
CHSS Assessment Coordinator (2016-18).
CHSS Tenure Assist Fund Committee (Summer 2015).
Chair, CHSS Curriculum Committee, Humanities Cluster (2014-15).
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) Curriculum Committee (2012).
CLAS Academic Dismissal Appeals Committee (Summer 2012).
CLAS Summer Grants Committee (Spring 2012).Rowan University: Service to the English Department
Tenure & Recontracting Committee (Chair 2019-22; member 2015-present; 23 files total).
Promotion Committee (member, 2019-present; 2 files total).
Sabbatical Committee (Chair 2019-22; member 2019-present).
Research Assistantship Awards Committee (Chair 2020-22 and 2023-24; member 2020-present; 21 awards total).
English Department Lending Library Librarian (2021-present).
Theory Reading Group (Faculty organizer 2015-18; member 2015-present).
Academic Advisor/Mentor (2010-present).
English Department ChatGPT Committee (Spring 2023).
Representative at Rowan Open Houses and Orientations: all CHSS Admitted/Prospective Student Receptions (via WebEx) Spring 2020, Summer 2020; all Transfer and Freshman Orientations 2019-22; occasional Transfer and Freshman Orientations 2011-14; CHSS Open Houses Spring 2014, Fall 2019, Fall 2021.
Classroom observations for junior and adjunct faculty (2015-present; 21 total).
Chair, Rowan University English Department (2019-22).
Chair, New Faculty Search Committee for a Digital Humanist (2021-22); member of (3) additional search committees for a specialist in global medieval literatures (2019-20); specialists in global/Anglophone literatures (2014-15); and an early modernist (2012-13).
Assessment Committee (Chair 2014-2020; member 2011-22).
Chair, Election Committee (2022).
Chair, Standard Time Release Committee (formerly Adjusted Load Committee, 2019-22; member 2017-18).
Chair, Planning Committee (2019-22).
Modalities Committee (2021-22).
AFT Union representative alternate (2021-22).
Curriculum Task Force (2016-17).
Organizer, Works in Progress Colloquium (2011-16).
Faculty Advisor for Undead Poets Society (2014-15).
Faculty Mentor for new hire (2014-15).
Emcee for Outstanding English Majors Awards Ceremony (Spring 2013).
Curriculum Committee (2011-13).
Website Coordinator (Summer 2012).
Organizer, Reading of James Joyce's Ulysses (April 2011).Stanford University, Postdoctoral Fellow
Co-founder, Finnegans Wake Reading Group (2009-10).
Course Coordinator, A Life of Thought or Action? Debates in Western Literature and Philosophy and Humans and Machines, Introduction to the Humanities Program (IHUM) (2007-10).
Boothe Prize Committee, IHUM (2009).
Contributing member, "Co-Creating Cultural Heritage." Interdisciplinary project for the study of innovative pedagogies (2007).
Technology Coordinator, Literature into Life: Alternative Worlds, IHUM (2007).
IHUM Machinima: 2006 Human and Machine Final Project Fair. Narrator and co-director/editor of the IHUM 57 documentary film and trailer (2007).
"Estate Manager," HumanMachine Island, Second Life. IHUM (2006).Stanford University, Doctoral Candidate
Review Club Co-Chair (2002-03).
Modernist Reading Group, founding member (2000-03).
Victorianist Reading Group (2002-03).
Boothe Prize Committee, Program in Writing and Rhetoric (2001-02).
Quals Committee (2001-02).
Admit Weekend Committee (2000-01).
Documented Ph.D.-level reading knowledge of French and Spanish.
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Modernist Studies Association (MSA), 2008-present.
International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN), 2008-present.