1. Education
2. Academic Positions
3. Publications
4. Lectures and Papers
5. Teaching
6. Professional Activity
7. Academic Honors
8. Work in Progress

Ph.D. Princeton University, Department of English, 1985
M.A. Princeton University, Department of English, 1983
B.A. Washington University (St. Louis) Departments of English and History, 1981

Lecturer on English at Princeton University, 1985-86
Assistant Professor of English at Boston University, 1986-1992
Associate Professor of English at Boston University, 1992-1998
Professor of English at Boston University, 1998-

Books:

The Rise of Multicultural America: Economy and Print Culture, 1865-1915 (University of North Carolina Press, 2008, completely revised version of 2005 Cambridge Book, w/new chapter four)

Becoming Multicultural: Culture, Economy, and the Novel, 1860-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), Chinese Translation published 2008

The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) reprinted as an electronic book from Princeton University Press, 2002.

The Power of Historical Knowledge: Narrating the Past in Hawthorne, James, and Dreiser (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). Part of Chapter Four reprinted in The Bostonians (New York: Everyman, 1994)

Books Edited:

Religion and Cultural Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)

Articles:

Marlon Brando Biographies, "Marlon Brando Official Website," (August, 2012).

"Risk Theory and the Contemporary American Novel," American Literary History (Spring 2010), pp. 1-27.

"Loose Canons and Representative Works in Religion and Literature," Religion and Literature (Fall 2009)

"Gibson's 'Passion' in Ethical Perspective," Journal of Renmin University of China, 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 82-86.

"Lolita in History," American Literature, 75 (September 2003), pp. 629-652.

"Becoming Multicultural," American Literary History 15 (Spring 2003), pp. 39-60.

"The Place of Ritual in Our Time," American Literary History 12 (Fall 2000), pp. 467-492 and Religion and Cultural Studies, (Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 56-79.

"Neighbors, Strangers, Corpses: Death and Sympathy in the Early Writings of W.E.B. DuBois," in Centuries' Ends, Narrative Means, ed. Robert D. Newman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 191-211; 355-360; reprinted in The Norton Critical Edition of The Souls of Black Folk ed. Henry Louis Gates (New York: Norton, 1999).

"Reproducing Women in the Awkward Age," Representations (Spring, 1992), pp. 107-136. Reprinted in Working Papers 27 (1991), pp. 1-49, John F. Kennedy-Institute, Free University Berlin, Germany.

"Cataloging the Creatures of the Deep: 'Billy Budd, Sailor' and the Rise of Sociology," in Special Issue of Boundary 2 on American Literature and Historicism 17 (Spring, 1990), pp. 272-304. Reprinted in Americanist Interventions into the Canon ed. Donald Pease (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994).

"The Imagination as Cultural Space," New England Quarterly 62 (March, 1989), pp. 105-115.

"The Uses of History in American Literary Scholarship, or, What We Mean When We Talk About History," Western Humanities Review 41 (Fall, 1987), pp. 290-300.

"The Politics of Temporality in The Bostonians" Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40 (Fall, 1985), pp. 1987-215.

Contributions to Books:

"Gertrude Stein," Companion to American Though ed. Richard Fox and James Kloppenberg (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers), 1996.

"Fiction and the Science of Society," The Columbia History of the American Novel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 189-215.

"John Barnard," Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 24: American Colonial Literature (1984), pp. 10-12.

"Thomas Reid," Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 31: American Colonial Literature (1985), pp. 318-321.

Fiction:

"Like A Rose Rabbi," Kansas Quarterly, 15 (Winter, 1983), pp. 63-74.

"The School of Martyrdom: Reconsidering 'Catcher in the Rye' Raymond Schqager Memorial Lecture, Notre Dame University, July 1, 2010; Boston University Evergreen Lecture, October 26, 2010

"Risk Theory and the Contemporary American Novel," Boston University Humanities Foundation, December 8, 2008; Notre Dame University, December 12, 2008

"Four Exercises in Literary History," Washington University in St. Louis, January 11, 2007

"Rewriting American Literary Realism," University of California, Irvine, March 1, 2006

"Gibson's 'Passion' in Ethical Perspective," American Literature Division Panel, MLA, 2004

"Lolita in History," Lectures on Criticism, Boston University, September 18, 2003

"Commentary" Panel on "Jews and Others," American Literature Association Convention, May 23, 2003

"Becoming Multicultural" (expanded lecture version of ALA 2001 paper), Syracuse University, December 4, 2002

"Becoming Multicultural," Panel on Literary History, American Literature Association Convention, May 25, 2001

"Religion and Cultural Studies," University of Pennsylvania, March 28, 2001

"Lolita in History," Bryan Lecture, University of Kentucky, Lexington (January 22, 2001)

"The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory," Food for Thought Lecture Series, Marsh Chapel, Boston University (May 4, 1999)

"The Place of Ritual in Our Time" Brandeis University (December 16, 1998); Harvard University (April 29, 1999)

"Getting Religion" The Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth University (June 25, 1998); Aesthetics and Difference Conference, University of California, Riverside (October 25, 1998); History in the Making Symposium, University of Wisconsin, Madison, (March 26, 1999)

"The Science of Sacrifice" (December, 1997, MLA Convention, "Imagining Religion in an Era of Cultural Studies," Special Session, Session Organizer)

"Neighbors, Strangers, Corpses: Death and Sympathy in the Early Writings of W.E.B. DuBois" Huntington Library (May 6, 1995) and University of California, Santa Barbara (June 1, 1995)

"The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory" Huntington Library Research Reports (April 25, 1995)

"Sacrificial Arts and Sciences" Claremont Graduate School (April 18, 1995)

"W.E.B. DuBois and the Dialogue of Death" (December, 1994, MLA Convention, "The African-American Author as Sociologist," Special Session, Session Organizer)

"Strangers, Neighbors, Corpses: Death and Sympathy in the Early Writings of W.E.B. DuBois" (Centuries Ends, Narrative Means Conference, Texas A&M University, April, 1994)

"Social Marks: Typology and Method in Giddings, Stein, and DuBois" The Hebrew University, Jersualem (May 30, 1993)

"Gertrude Stein and the Art of Social Description" (University of Rome, April 27, 1993)

"Social Marks: Typology and Method in Giddings, Stein, and DuBois" (Northwestern University, October 2, 1992)

"Typology in Giddings and Stein" (American Studies Association Convention, November, 1992)

"From Philadelphia Negroes to Black Souls: W.E.B. DuBois and the Science of Society" (American Literature Association Convention, May 26, 1991)

"The Social Context of Literary Study" (Vanderbilt U., May 14, 1991)

"Reproducing Women in Henry James" (Free University, Berlin, April 27, 1991)

"Billy Budd, Sailor and the Late Nineteenth-Century Context" (University of Venice, April 23, 1991)

"Reproducing Women in Henry James" (University of California, Berkeley, March 1, 1991)

"Women and Marriage in Gyp and James" (French Literature Panel on Social Theory and Social Fiction, December, 1990 MLA Convention)

"American New Historicism At The Turn Of The Century: The Critic as Social Scientist" (Special Session, December, 1988 MLA Convention)

"Bridging Personality and Society: The Subject as Type in Simmel and Weber" (Marxist Literary Group Panel, December, 1987 MLA Convention)

"Literary Concord" (USIA English Teaching Institute, August, 1986)

"Strategies of Forgetting in Henry James" (Special Session, December, 1986 MLA Convention)

"The Possibilities for Feminine Critical History in James" (James Society, NEMLA Convention, April, 1986)

"Narrating the Truths of the Hearth: The Power of History in Hawthorne" (Special Session, December, 1985 MLA Convention)

Courses:

American Realism and Naturalism
American Stereotypes: Readings in American Literature
American Studies Seminar
The Contemporary American Novel
Death and Mourning in the Era of American Realism (Graduate Seminar)
The Double American Renaissance (Graduate Seminar)
Feminist Theory (Graduate Seminar)
Feminist Theory
Gender and Ritual in the American Novel (Graduate Seminar)
Introduction to Literary Theory (Graduate Seminar)
The Modern American Novel
The Nineteenth-Century American Novel
The Nineteen-Fifties in Film, Novels, and Social Theory (Graduate Seminar)
On The Road in American Literature and Film
Proseminar in Literature: Renaissance Love/Modern Death
Readings in Modern Literature
Religion and Violence in American Culture (Graduate Seminar)
Religion and Violence in American Culture
Rewriting American Realism (Graduate Seminar)
Risk and Contemporary American Culture (Graduate Seminar)
Survey of English Literature: Defoe to Woolf
Texts and Contexts in the Writings of Henry James (Graduate Seminar)
Writing Women: Crossing Cultures and Genres in Modern to Contemporary Literature

Graduate Supervision (American Studies, English, Religion):

Dissertation Director:
Shitsuyo Masui (AS) Degree, 1995: "Women, Witchcraft, and Religion in Hawthorne's Novels"
Molly Childers (EN) Degree 1998: "Female Adolescence in the American Novel"
David Shawn (AS) Degree, 1998: "The Transformation of Oratory in Antebellum America"
Jeanne Quinn (EN) Degree, 2000: "Democratic Aesthetics in the 1930s"
Naomi Sofer (EN) Degree, 2000: "Rites of Authorship: Women and Religion in 19th C. Novels"
Bryan Waterman (AS) Degree, 2000: "The Friendly Club and 18th C. Intellectual Cultures"
Sohui Lee (EN) Degree, 2001: "The Pens of the Democratic Party"
Jennifer Ho (EN) Degree, 2002: "Consumption in Contemporary Asian-American Literature"
Kathy Lawrence (AS) Degree, 2003: "Aesthetic Transcendentalism and its Legacy"
Elif Armbruster (AS) Degree 2005: "Reading Three Dimensions: 19th C. Authorship & Architecture"
Marjorie Purnine (RE) Degree 2005: "Sentimental Pieties: Literary and Religious Crises of Loss"
Thomas Nesbit (RE) Degree 2005: "Spiritualizing Excess in the Writings of Henry Miller"
John Tessitore (AS): Degree 2006 "Whitmania: Poet Worship and the Free Religion Association"
Johnny Lew (AS): Degree 2006 "Travels in a World-Economy, 1492-1666"
Christine Kraemer (RE): Degree 2007 "The Erotic Fringe: Sexual Minorities and Religion"
Stephen Hodin (AS): Degree 2008 "Jefferson's Ghost: Slavery and Machinery in America"
Joshua Pederson (RE): Degree 2008 "Gnostic Worlds in Contemporary American Culture"
Hannah Carlson (AS): Degree 2008 "Pockets, Possessions and the Ordering of Things"
Eoin Cannon (EN): Degree 2009 "Religions of Recovery: Addiction in Modern Culture"
Diane Hotten-Somers (AS): Degree 2011 "Ethnicity and Cultural Nationalism in Irish Drama"
Patton Dodd (RE): Degree 2011 "Religious Violence in Film"
John Barnard (EN): Degree 2011 "Icarian Exceptions: Race, Revision, and American Myth"
Gillian Mason (AS): Degree 2012 "Censorship, Obscenity, and American Culture, 1970-1986"
Stephanie Byttebier (EN): Degree 2012 "Trials of Empathy in James and Cather"
Jessica Kent (EN): "Obsession With Henry James: The Authorial Biography Novel"
Heather Holcombe (EN): "Made in America: Fordism and Genetic Theory in the 20th C."
Arielle Zibrak (EN): "Authorship and Marriage Markets in Anglo-American Culture"
Erin Salius (EN): "The Catholic Margin in 20th C. African-American Literature"

Second Reader:
Frederick DiMarco (EN), Degree, 1989
Julia Grant (AS) Degree, 1990
Kristin Flieger Samuelian (EN), Degree, 1991
Dierdre Phelps (EN), Degree, 1993
Katie Kodat (EN), Degree, 1993
Kristin King (EN), Degree, 1994
Kim Sanders (AS) Degree, 1994
Mark Eaton (EN), Degree, 1996
Amal Amireh (EN) Degree, 1997
Becky Noel (AS) Degree, 1999

In addition, I have served as examiner on seventy-five Ph.D. qualifying exams in English, American Studies, and Religion.

U.S. Delegate for Literature, Oxford University Press, 2011-2016

Princeton University, Advisory Council for the English Department, 2012-2016

Reviewer for American Council of Learned Societies, Fellowships, 2011, 2012

Harvard University: Ad Hoc Tenure Committee, 2009

University of Michigan: Tenure Review, 2009

Reader for Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, Duke University Press, U. of Chicago Press, Princeton University Press, Ohio State University Press, Early American Literature, Modern Fiction Studies, The American Quarterly, American Literary History, History of the Human Sciences.

Consultant, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990-1995, 2000-2006

Selection Committee for the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2002-2003

Faculty of the Teachers as Scholars Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1999-2005

Modern Language Association Committee on Prize for Best First Book, 1991

Panelist/Reviewer, National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowships for University Teacher, 1989

Boston University: Faculty Council, 1993-4; Academic Policy Committee, 1995-1998; College of Arts and Sciences Appointments and Tenure Committee, 2002-2003; Sexual Harassment Committee, 2003-2006; Division of Religion and Theological Studies Review Committee, 2006-2007; Faculty Advisor to Burn - Student Literary Magazine; School of Hospitality Administration Dean Search Committee 2009-2010

Boston University English Department: Senior Americanist Search Committee, Junior Americanist Search Committee, Head of Job Placement for Graduate Students, Fall 2000, Graduate Committee (1996-2001), Lectures In Criticism Series Committee, Ex Libris Advisory Committee, Academic Policy Committee, Dean's Chairman Search Committee, Junior Appointments Committee, Department Colloquium Committee, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Graduate Student Exams Committee, Chair of Search Committee: Black Literature of the Americas, English Renaissance Search Committee; Chair of Search Committee: 19th C American/Transatlantic Poetry; Chair of Search Committee: Early American/Transatlantic Literature; Chair of Search Committee: 19th C. American Literature; Film Search Committee

Boston University American Studies Graduate Committee, 1989; 1993-4; 1995-96; 2000-01; Admissions Committee, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008

Dartmouth School of Criticism and Theory, 1987

Member of Modern Language Association, American Literature Association, Northeastern Modern Language Association, American Studies Association

Raymond Schwager Memorial Lecturer, Notre Dame University, 2010

Senior Research Fellowship, Boston University Humanities Foundation, 2008-2009

Certificates of Appreciation, BU Class of 2007, 2008 Teacher Honoree

Anne Shachter Smith Memorial Lecturer, Bar-Ilan University, Fall 2003 (declined)

Distinguished Teaching Award, Boston University Honors Program, 2001

Selection Committee for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2001

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2001-2002

Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study, Senior Fellowship, 2001 (declined)

American Council of Learned Societies, Senior Fellowship, 2001 (declined)

Scholarship Profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, 1998

Fulbright Visiting Professorship at Tel Aviv University, June, 1996 (declined)

Fletcher S. Jones Fellowship, The Huntington Library, 1995

Howard S. Eckles Fellowship, University of Utah Humanities Center, 1994-95 (declined)

Research Affiliate, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian (1990-91)

National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship for University Teachers, (1990-91)

Cited in Boston University Free Press as one of the best teachers at B.U., 1988

Junior Research Fellowship, Boston University Humanities Foundation, 1988-1989

Research Grant, Boston University, Summer, 1987

Tuition Scholarship for Dartmouth Theory School, 1987

Harold S. Dodds Dissertation Fellowship, Princeton U., 1984-85

Princeton University Graduate Fellowship, 1981-3

Award for Fiction, Kansas Quarterly Prizes, 1983

B.A., magna cum laude, Washington University, 1981

Student Representative: W.U. Board of Trustees, 1980-1

Antoinette G. Dames Award, in Political Science (W.U.), 1980

F. Ward Denys Prize, in English (W.U.), 1979

Book Project: "Brando's Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work"--under contract with W.W. Norton and Company

Book on Cinema, Literature and the Intelligentsia in the 1950's

A Novel in Four Acts

Essay:"The School of Martyrdom: Reconsidering 'Catcher in the Rye"