My dissertation argues that lyric is best defined as an indirection of voice rather than the subjective experience of a persona. Following Paul de Man, …
“Between Law and Justice” considers how American literature after WWII responded to political and philosophical debates about the interrelation of law, conscience, and democracy. From …
This dissertation examines works by Richard Wright, Chang-rae Lee and Junot Diaz, as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather films, and how they theorize …
“Race After Identity” examines multi-ethnic literary interventions into discourses of racial difference and politics of identity formation. Central to this study is the tension between …
“Reverb” recovers the resonance between American literature and sonic media from the invention of the telephone and phonograph (the 1870s) to the end of the …
This dissertation argues that secrets become increasingly politicized over the course of the twentieth century, emerging from the private realm (the context of “family secrets” …
In this study, I explore listening’s relationship to reading and its inflection through the materiality of the silent page. More specifically, I aim to understand …
This dissertation interrogates the complex operations of shame around homosexuality as they appear in early twentieth-century Anglophone writing. I argue that these operations do not …