Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: M.A. English 1983, Ph.D. English 1987
  • Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan: B.A. English 1981

PUBLICATIONS AND RESEARCH

Books
  • The Difficulties of Modernism. New York: Routledge, 2003. xviii, 318 pp.
  • Changing Voices: The Modern Quoting Poem. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. xx, 196 pp.
Books: Co-authored
  • Art with a Difference: Looking at Difficult and Unfamiliar Art. Mountain View, California: Mayfield (now owned by McGraw-Hill), 2001. Co-authored by Professor Timothy van Laar, University of Illinois. xi, 132 pp.
  • Active Sights: Art as Social Action. Mountain View, California: Mayfield (now owned by McGraw-Hill), 1998. Co-authored by Professor Timothy van Laar, University of Illinois. x, 126 pp.
Refereed Articles and Book Chapters
  • Taking Literature Seriously: Essays to 1927. In The Blackwell Companion to T.S. Eliot. Ed. David Chinitz. Forthcoming, Blackwell Publishing, 2009. 263-274.
  • The Newspaper Response to Tender Buttons, and What It Might Mean. In Transatlantic Print Culture, 1880-1940, ed. Ann Ardis and Patrick Collier. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 199-214.
  • Learning from Philistines: Suspicion, Refusing to Read, and the Rise of Dubious Modernism. In New Directions in American Reception Study. Ed. James Machor and Philip Goldstein. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 156-78.
  • When Did Modernism Begin? Formulating Boundaries in the Modern Anthology. English Studies in Canada 30:1 (March 2004): 137-156.
  • ‘I Can Have More Than Enough Power to Satisfy Me:’ T.S. Eliot’s Construction of His Audience. In Marketing Modernisms, ed. Stephen Watt and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. 37-60.
  • Reading Nonsense: The Experience of Contemporary Poetry. Genre 24:1 (Spring 1991): 25-43.
  • Getting the Big Picture: The Content of Art and the Education of Artists. Art & Academe 4:1 (Fall 1991): 1-14. Co-authored by Professor Timothy van Laar, University of Illinois.
  • Shifting Metaphors: Interarts Comparisons and Analogy. Word & Image 5:2 (April 1989): 206-213.
  • The Problem of Ashbery’s Reputation. Dalhousie Review 67:2/3 (Summer/Fall 1988): 345-354.
  • Folktales in the Harlem Renaissance. American Literature 58 (1986): 64-81.
  • H.D. and the Film Arts. Journal of Aesthetic Education 18 (1984): 57-65.
Papers Delivered
  • Fraudulent Intents. Modernist Studies Association Conference, Nashville, November 13-16, 2008.
  • Rethinking the “Shameless Puffery” of Modernist Charlatans. Newcastle University, United Kingdom, May 7, 2008. Invited lecture.
  • The Newspaper Response to Tender Buttons, And What it Might Mean. Transatlantic Print Culture, 1880-1940: Emerging Media, Emerging Modernisms, Symposium at the University of Delaware, April 27-28, 2007.
  • Clipping Services and Evidence. Modernist Studies Association Conference, Tulsa, October 19-22, 2006.
  • Working with Ridicule: The Initial Response to Tender Buttons. Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English Annual Conference, York University, Toronto, May 27-30, 2006.
  • Signs of Pleasure: The Intentions of the Neo-pretty. Opening Lecture for art exhibition Pleasure in Art, Electron Art Center, Breda, The Netherlands May 26, 2006.
  • The 1913 Armory Show in Chicago: One-Liners as Intellectual History. Modernist Studies Association Conference, Chicago, November 3-6, 2005.
  • Interpreting Contemporary Art. Access Art, Visual Arts Nova Scotia. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, October 27, 2005. Invited talk.
  • Reconceiving the Philistine: Suspicion and the Rise of Modernism. American Reception Study Conference: Reconsiderations and New Directions, University of Delaware, Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2005.
  • Why care about the reviewer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? Textual Culture Conference, University of Stirling, Scotland, July 18-20, 2005
  • All Affect and No Evidence: Pre-modernist Reading Practices. Modernist Studies Association Conference, Vancouver, October 23, 2004.
  • When Did Modernism Begin? What the Introductions to Early Anthologies Reveal. Archiving Modernism Conference, University of Alberta, July 25, 2003.
  • Twentieth-Century Difficulty and Nineteenth-Century Art: Creativity, the Sublime, and Professionalism. Conference on Beethoven and the Creative Process, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 2, 2003.
  • ’Simply Receive and Share the Poem:’ Excavating a Pre-modernist Pedagogy. In seminar entitled Poetry, Poetics, and Pedagogy. Modernist Studies Association Conference, University of Wisconsin at Madison, November 1, 2002.
  • High Modernism as Hoax. Modernist Studies Association Conference, Rice University, October 13, 2001.
  • Foucault’s Nightmare: Anxious Responses to Difficulty in Twentieth-Century Art and Literature. Invited lecture for series ;Cyclops: Vision and Visuality into the 21st Century. University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, January 25, 2001.
  • The Difficult Pleasures of Modernism. Modernist Studies Association Conference, University of Pennsylvania, October 13, 2000.
  • Why the Modern Canon Does Not Include Simple Texts. Invited lecture, Simon Fraser University, February 24, 2000.
  • Simplicity and the Modern Canon. Inaugural Modernist Studies Association Conference, Pennsylvania State University, October 8, 1999.
  • The Tyranny of the Expert: Modern Difficulty and Professionalism. 1998 Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, December 27, 1998.
  • Fashionable Difficulty and the Creation of the Modern Canon. The Sociomaterial Turn: Excavating Modernism: 12th Annual Comparative Literature Symposium, University of Tulsa, March 8, 1998.
  • Modern Difficulty and Radial Categories: or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Waste Land. 1997 International Cognitive Linguistics Association conference, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 19, 1997.
  • The Polymorphous Audience: Artists and the Reception of Their Art. School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March 14, 1994. Co-authored by Professor Timothy Van Laar, University of Illinois.
  • Why Don’t We Get Into Groups: A Study in Ambivalence. 1993 ACCUTE Conference, Ottawa, Canada, June 1, 1993.
  • Trying to Understand: Reviewers of The Waste Land. 1991 Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, December 29, 1991.
  • From Gertrude Stein to John Cage: Abstract Problems in Literature and the Visual Arts. Dalhousie University Art Gallery, January 14, 1988.
  • Hidden Agendas: Interpretive Strategies in the Teaching of Art. National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, School of Visual Arts, New York, November 7, 1987. Co-authored by Professor Timothy Van Laar, University of Illinois.
  • Texts Quoting Texts. Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 27, 1987.
  • Shifting Metaphors and the Boundaries of Interarts Comparisons. Conference on Interpretation/Translation/Performance, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, October 18, 1986.
Reviews
  • Rev. of British Poetry in the Age of Modernism, by Peter Howarth. Forthcoming, Style, 2008.
  • Rev. of "Modernist Literature: Challenging Fictions" by Vicki Mahaffey. Forthcoming, James Joyce Quarterly, 2008.
  • Rev. of Modernism and the Culture of Market Society, by John Xiros Cooper. James Joyce Quarterly 42/43: 1/4 (Fall 2004/Summer 2006): 373-76.
  • Rev. of Gender, Desire and Sexuality in T.S. Eliot, ed. by Cassandra Laity and Nancy K. Gish. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 49:1 (January 2006): 103-06.
  • Rev. of The Great War and the Language of Modernism, by Vincent Sherry. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 48:3 (Sept 2005), 339-42.
  • Rev. of The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound, ed. Ira B. Nadel. English Studies in Canada 28:3 (September 2002): 542-45.
  • Rev. of Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern, by Janet Lyon. Dalhousie Review 82:2 (Summer 2002): 317-19.
  • Rev. of James Joyce and Censorship: The Trials of Ulysses, by Paul Vanderham. Dalhousie Review. 77:3 (Autumn 1997): 435-36.
  • Rev. of Becoming Canonical in American Poetry, by Timothy Morris. Dalhousie Review. 75:2 (Summer/Fall 1995): 261-263.
  • Rev. of Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe, by Peter Quartermain. English Studies in Canada 21:3 (September 1995): 368-69.
  • Rev. of Imitating the Italians: Wyatt, Spenser, Synge, Pound, Joyce, by Reed Way Dasenbrock. Dalhousie Review 71:4 (Winter 1991/92): 500-502.
  • Rev. of Languages of Liberation: The Social Text in Contemporary American Poetry, by Walter Kalaidjian. Dalhousie Review 69:4 (Winter 1989/90): 612-14.

Grants

  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Research Grant 2005-2008
  • Dalhousie University Research Development Fund grant, 2004
  • Dalhousie University Research Development Fund grant, 2002
  • Dalhousie University Research Development Fund grant, 1999
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Research Grant 1995-1998
  • Dalhousie University Research Development Fund grant, 1993
  • Dalhousie University Research Development Fund grant, 1991
  • Dalhousie University Research Development Fund grant, 1988

Academic Positions

  • Professor, Department of English, Dalhousie University, 2003-present
  • Chair, Department of English, Dalhousie University, 2005-2007
  • Assistant Dean, Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Dalhousie University, 2002-2005
  • Visiting Associate Professor of Art, Art History, and Design, Notre Dame University, Spring 2002
  • Associate Professor, Department of English, Dalhousie University, 1992-2003
  • Assistant Professor, Department of English, Dalhousie University, 1987-1992
  • Chair, Undergraduate Committee, Department of English, Dalhousie University, 1998-2000
  • Chair, Graduate Committee, Department of English, Dalhousie University, 1989-90

Seminars and Workshops

  • Seminar Leader (with Timothy Van Laar), Art and Its Cultures: Looking at the Social Aspects of Art, from Scandals to Museums, The Pew Younger Scholars Program, Undergraduate Summer Seminars, Notre Dame University, May 28-June 18, 2002.
  • Seminar Leader (with Timothy Van Laar), Contemporary Art and the Question of Boundaries, The Pew Younger Scholars Program, Graduate Summer Seminars, Notre Dame University, June 3-17, 2000.