Ph.D., English literature, Yale University, 1985
M.A., English literature, Yale University, 1980
B.A., English literature, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Boston University, 1978
Nineteenth-century British and American poetry
Critical theory
Freud and psychoanalysis
Queer theory and culture
Milton
Shakespeare
Dante
Contemporary drama
My research has grown out of my teaching, with special emphasis on poetry and drama, the genres of literature that allow lyric feeling its greatest scope.
Joining Professor Bill McDonald and his students and colleagues in our collaborative work on J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" has revitalized my scholarly efforts. More than the essays we wrote, edited and published together on Coetzee's novel, what energized me was the whole experience of fashioning a project with teaching at its heart.
The Johnston experiment, ongoing now for more than forty years, has been my greatest inspiration as a teacher. Really to give students full authority in the seminar, the classroom and the living-learning center takes courage. The results are often astonishing and wonderful, as their minds grow under their own impulse.
Directing the Proudian Interdisciplinary Honors Program for the past ten years has enlarged my interest beyond the arts and humanities to the behavioral sciences and the natural sciences. It has given me the chance to work with the brightest, most adventurous students at the University and follow their progress through their concentrations and their cross-disciplinary explorations. My part in advising them as they plot and complete their senior honors projects is immensely rewarding, because I see them flourish in their own individual ways.
ENGL 201 Critical Reading
Romanticism and the Feminine Imagination
ENGL 361 Tennyson and Browning
ENGL 323 Milton and the Romantics
ENGL 118 Literature of the Bible
ENGL 402 Literary Theory and Criticism
Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar in the Humanities
Terrific Writers (First-year Seminar)
Reeling and Writhing (First-year Seminar)
Queer Activism and Theory
Freud's Rhetoric
Queer Voices in Popular Culture
Current Fiction: Lesbian and Gay Novels
Dante's Commedia
ENGL 221 Shakespeare to 1600
ENGL 222 Shakespeare after 1600
Introduction to British Literature
Literature in England (travel course to Britain)
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Assistant Professor of English, 1983-1991
University of Cincinnati, C. P. Taft Postdoctoral fellowship, 1984-1985
Printer and publisher, New England Free Press, Boston, 1971-73
"Sympathy for the Devil," in Encountering "Disgrace": Reading and Teaching Coetzee's Novel, Camden House, 2009
"The Failure of Revelation in 'Angels in America,'" American Drama (4:1), Fall 1994
"'Abstracted in His Dreams#: Katharine Tynan's `W. B. Yeats,#" with James J. McFadden; edition of Tynan's 1910 memoir of Yeats; Modern Philology (88:3), February 1991
"Whitman's Darkest Leaves," his poetic figurations of perverse desire, language as the beloved body, examined according to formalist, psychoanalytic and queer theories
Innovative Teaching Award, University of Redlands, 2007
Armacost Award for Faculty Service to Alumni, Redlands, 2002
Outstanding Teacher Award, University of Redlands, 1993
Daniel Dorchester prize for senior essay on Gerard Manley Hopkins, Boston University, 1978
On Tennessee Williams, "The Glass Menagerie," Old Globe Theater, San Diego, for U of Redlands Alumni
"Whitman's Darkest Leaves," Redlands Faculty Forum, October 2006
"Nowhere and Everywhere," MLA Convention, December 2003 session on Generalists in the Small College Department
"John Steinbeck's Eloquence," Steinbeck House, Salinas, California, for U of Redlands Alumni, September, 1999
On Moisés Kaufman, "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde," March 1998, Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, for U of Redlands Alumni
"Destruction in Whitman's Calamus Poems," International Conference on Despair and Desire, November 1996
On Tony Kushner, "Angels in America," November 1992, Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, for U of Redlands Alumni
"Moneta's Blank Likeness," MLA Convention, December 1991, special session, Keats and the Feminine (organizer as well)
"Whitman's Debris of Voice," MLA Convention, December 1985, special session, American Poetic Voice
Rancho Mirage Public Library : "Twain and Faulkner," Winter 2002; "Wharton and James," Winter 2001; "Jane Austen's Novels," Winter 1999 and 2000; "Romantic Poetry," Fall 1997
Temecula Library, Temecula, California: "Poets Today," three series on contemporary poets, 1994-1996, the first sponsored by the NEH and the second by the California Council on the Humanities
Contributing faculty member, Johnston Center for Integrative Studies
Phi Beta Kappa, University Chapter Selection Committee
Queers and Friends Faculty Caucus, Founder and Convener, 1999-2003