I came to Marquette as a Victorianist and reader-response critic. My early research and publication was on Victorian periodical literature and the intersection of Victorian science, literature and values. My interest in Robert Louis Stevenson and Gothic literature in the late nineteenth century yielded Rituals of Dis-Integration (1993) as well as articles in Victorian Studies and elsewhere.
I have taught all the British survey courses and individual author courses on John Henry Newman as well as Hopkins and Hardy. My work on Newman culminated in a speakers' program and a collection of critical essays (1992) derived from it. From reader-response I moved to Gadamerian hermeneutical criticism and — most recently — the theo-dramatic theory of the late Swiss humanist and theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar.
In the department I have taught the graduate history of criticism as well as the undergraduate course in literary criticism. Since beginning work on Balthasar, my research and teaching interests have shifted to drama.
In the early 90s I contributed to and guest-edited issues of Renascence: Essays on Values and Literature, the scholarly journal that has been published at Marquette for over fifty years. For Renascence I interviewed novelist Larry Woiwode and contributed essays on Hans-Georg Gadamer and G. K. Chesterton. Since 1995 I have edited the journal. That has made me, perforce, a generalist in my tastes, and increasingly committed to the relation of literature to spirituality, religion, and belief. Under my editorship Renascence has done special issues on Denise Levertov, Balthasar, Rene Girard, Graham Greene, and Gabriel Marcel. I have interviewed Minnesota novelist Jon Hassler as well as Denise Levertov.
Teaching Fields
- Poetry
- Drama
- Critical Theory
- Victorian Literature
Office Hours
FALL 2009
- MW 2:00-3:00
- F 9:00-10:00 and by appointment
Teaching Schedule
FALL 2009
- 2730 - MWF - 1:00
- 4610 - MWF - 10:00
Research Interests
- Denise Levertov and Gerard Manley Hopkins
- The fiction of Jon Hassler
- Hans Urs von Balthasar
- Drama, Poetry, Victorian literature
Selected Publications
- "Hans Urs von Balthasar and Some Contemporary Catholic Writers." LOGOS (Fall 2007).
- "G. K. Chesteron's Orthodoxy as Intellectual Autobiography." G.K. Chesterton: Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom, 2006. (Reprint).
- Glory, Grace, and Culture: The Works of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Paulist Press, 2005.
- "The Plays of Peter Shaffer and the Mimetic Theory of René Girard." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. (Fall 2004).
- Rituals of Dis-Integration: Romance and Madness in the Victorian Psychomythic Tale. 1993.
- Critical Essays on John Henry Newman. University of Victoria, 1992.
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Honors/Awards
- Editor, Renascence 1995-present
- Invited presenter for week-long seminar, “Substantially Catholic,” Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, June, 2008
- Mentor, Collegium: Colloquy on Religion and the Intellectual Life, 1995, 2000, 2003
- Marquette Summer Faculty Fellowships
- NEH Summer Fellowships
- Fulbright Fellowship to West Germany, 1972-73
English Department
