BOOKS
- Authored
- Mission Unaccomplished: American War Films in the Twenty-First Century. University of Texas Press, forthcoming.
- Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s. Rutgers UP, 2018.
- The Theatre of August Wilson. Bloomsbury/Methuen, 2018.
- Television in Black-and-White America: Race and National Identity. UP Kansas, 2005.
- Flatlining on the Field of Dreams: Cultural Narratives in the Films of President Reagan's America. Rutgers UP, 1997.
- Containment Culture: American Narrative, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age. Duke UP, 1995.
- Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon. U Iowa P, 1988; paperback, 1991.
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- Edited
- ( Dramatic Apparitions and Theatrical Ghosts. Bloomsbury, 2023. (Ann C. Hall, co-editor.)
- The Men Who Knew Too Much: Alfred Hitchcock and Henry James. Oxford UP, 2011. (Susan Griffin, co-editor.)
- August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle. U Iowa P, 2010.
- May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson. U Iowa P, 1994.
PRIZE-WINNING PUBLICATIONS
- "God's Law and the Wide Screen: The Ten Commandments as Cold War 'Epic'." PMLA, May 1993, 415-430 (winner of the Modern Language Association 1993 William Riley Parker Prize).
- "Reading the Body: Alice Walker's Meridian and the Archeology of Self." Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 1988, 55-67 (winner of 1988 "Margaret Church MFS Memorial Prize").
- "Dislogdings." Sewanee Review, Winter 2018. (Winner of the 2018 Sewanee Review Poetry Prize.)
ARTICLES SINCE 2007
“If We Changed Clothes, Sir, We Could Get Things Back to Normal”: Full Frontal Assault and Gender Norms in What the Butler Saw.” Harold Pinter Review, Vol. 6, 2022, 71-77.
“August Wilson’s Time and History’s Black Bottom.” In African American Literature in Transition, 1980-1990, Rich Blint and D. Quentin Miller, eds.Cambridge UP, 2022, 99-118.
“Rodney King, The Fugitive, and the Cogency of Cultural Narratives.” In Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory, Paul Dawson and Maria Mäkelä, eds. Routledge, 2022, 86-102.
“Playing the Cold War: Games, Rules, and Norms.” In Don DeLillo in Context, Jesse Kavadlo, ed. Cambridge UP, 2022, 47-57.
“Trump’s Dog, Reagan’s Whistle, and the Republican Party Core.” the A-Line: a journal of progressive thought, Summer 2021(online, 2000 words).
“Reading August Wilson’s Character and His Characters: A Suggestive Introduction.” August Wilson Journal, Summer, 2019 (online, 3000 words).
“From the Industrial Unconscious to the Cinematic to the Televisual to the Networked.” Arizona Quarterly, Summer 2019, 23-36.
“August Wilson, Jazz Structure, and the Historical Record.” In Approaches to Teaching August Wilson, Sandra Shannon and Sandra Richards, eds. New York: MLA Publications, 2016, 62-68.
“Alfred Hitchcock.” In Fifty Hollywood Directors, Yvonne Tasker and Suzanne Leonard, eds., Routledge P, 2015, 118-127.
“Cold War Culture at the Mid-Twentieth Century.” Cambridge History of Postmodern Literature, Brian McHale and Len Platt, eds. Cambridge UP, 2015.
“Romantic Intrigue, Global Farce, and the UN: Auctioning Cold War Intimacy in ‘North by Northwest’.” The Cambridge Companion to Hitchcock, Jonathan Freedman, ed., Cambridge UP, 2015, 161-179.
“LOST in the Aftermath of 9/11: Survivor Meets Club Med.” In Narrating 9/11: Fantasies of State, Security, and Terrorism, John Duvall and Robert Marzec, eds., Johns Hopkins UP, 2015, 118-141.
“’We—He and Us—Should Confederate’: Intruder in the Dust, the Dixiecrat Campaign, and Faulkner’s Cold War Agenda.” In Fifty Years After Faulkner, Jay Watson and Ann Abadie, eds., UP of Mississippi, 2015, 200-212.
“’We—He and Us—Should Confederate’: Intruder in the Dust, the Dixiecrat Campaign, and Faulkner’s Cold War Agenda.” In Fifty Years After Faulkner, Jay Watson and Ann Abadie, eds., UP of Mississippi, 2015, 200-212.
“Sayonara, Teahouse of the August Moon, and the Cold War Re-“Opening” of Japan.” In 1952-2012: The American Legacy in Japan Sixty Years after the Occupation, Duccio Basosi et al. eds. Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2015, 141-155.
“Neoliberalism, “Magical Thinking” and Silver Linings Playbook” (Diane Negra co-author). Narrative, October 2014, 312-332.
“What Nanda Knew: A Truth not Universally Acknowledged in The Awkward Age.” In: Transforming Henry James, Donatella Izzo, et. al, eds., Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013.
“The Empire Strikes Out: Star Wars (IV, V, VI) and the Advent of Reaganism.” In American Literature and Culture in the Age of the Cold War, Steven Belleto and Danial Grausam, eds. U Iowa P, 2012, 187-208.
“US Fiction and the Cold War.” In Cambridge Companion to American Fiction after 1945, John Duvall, ed. Cambridge: U Cambridge P, 2011, 167-180.
“’We Have Some Planes’: Postmodernism, Pop Culture, and the 9/11 Commission Report." AltreModernità (Milan), 10-2011, 1-17.
“Teaching Culture.” Journal of Narrative Technique, Summer 2011, 175-181.
“A Partial History of American Film” (review essay). American Quarterly, Spring 2011, 217-229.
“What Makes Films Historical?” Film Quarterly, Spring 2009, 76-80.
“Terror, Representation, and Postmodern Lessons in Hitler Studies” (review essay). Journal of Postmodern Culture, September 2009 (online 6000 words).
“The A-Historical Actor on the Historical Stage: American Studies, The Cultural Borderline Personality, and John Sayles Lone Star.” Comparative American Studies, vol. 6, No 1, 2008, 1-15.
“Exploring Correlation and Interpretation in Gravity’s Rainbow.” In Approaches to Teaching Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Other Works, Thomas Schaub, ed., MLA Publications, 2008, 155-162.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: Cutting the Historical Record, Dramatizing a Blues CD.” In The Cambridge Companion to August Wilson, Christopher Bigsby, ed., Cambridge UP, 2007, 102-112.
“Reaganism: The Return of the Retro-Fitted Empire and the Jedi with Two Brains.” In Films of the 1980s, Stephen Prince, ed., Film Decades Series, Rutgers UP, 2007, 82-106.
“Falling Man’s Descent into Meaning: A Response to Rob Kroes.” Journal of American Studies, 45 (2011), 16-20.
Articles Prior to 2007 in: Contemporary Literature, American Literary History, Henry James Review, American Drama, Theater, Modern Fiction Studies, College Literature, boundary 2, Pynchon Notes, Midwest Quarterly, Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, Centennial Review, Sagetrieb, Obsidian II, Georgia Review, New England Review/ Bread Loaf Quarterly, The Lion and the Unicorn: A Critical Journal of Children's Literature.
POETRY IN: Bitterroot, Cul-de-Sac, Georgia Review, Home Planet News, Journal of New Jersey Poets, New England Review, Paris Review, Partisan Review, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Sycamore Review, The Shore Review.
RECENT FILM REVIEWS:
The Madman and the Movement. Documentary. Stephen Talbot, dir. Public Broadcasting Service, American Experience series, March 2023. Journal of American History, 2023.
“George W. Bush.” Jamila Ephron, Barak Goodman, and Chris Durrance; Dir. by Ephron; Written by Goodman and Durrance. PBS American Experience, 2020.” Journal of American History, 2020.
“McCarthy. Sharon Grimberg, dir. PBS, 2020.” Journal of American History, 2020.
“The Lavender Scare. Josh Norman, dir. PBS, 2019.” Journal of American History, December 2019.
Additional Film and Book Reviews in: African American Review, American Literature (2), Business History Review, Callaloo, College Literature, Film Quarterly (3), Georgia Review, International History Review, Modern Fiction Studies (12), Philadelphia Inquirer, South Central Review, and Style,
ARTICLES REPRINTED IN: Tube Talk: Big Ideas in Television. Chicago, Great Books Foundation; Race and Gender in American Film, Pearson Publishin; Novels for Students, Gale Publications; Poetry Criticism, Gale Publications (3); Literature and Ourselves: Thematic Introduction for Readers and Writers, Longman P; Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Chelsea House; Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Modern Critical Interpretations, Chelsea House; National Identities and Post-Americanist Narratives, Duke UP; Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, Amistad; In Holden Caulfield, Chelsea House, 1990.
