My primary interests are in U.S. literatures, literary and cultural theory, regional/settler literatures, Oceanian literatures, creative writing (fiction), and what I call American Pacificism, a form of American Pacific Orientalism that I elaborate on in AMERICAN PACIFICISM: OCEANIA IN THE U.S. IMAGINATION (2006). This monograph, part of Routledge's Research in Postcolonial Literatures series, deals with the U.S. production of knowledges about the Pacific from early shipboard narratives of encounter through contemporary tourist narratives.

Other recent publications include an essay on teaching the literatures of Hawai'i in AMERICAN LITERATURE AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY (2003), a novel, BUTTON MAN (2004), an essay on Melville and Globalism in THE BLACKWELL GUIDE TO HERMAN MELVILLE (2006), and a number of reviews in CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC.

Education
B.A. Hobart College
M.A. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Ph.D. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Awards
College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature Excellence in Teaching Award (1996)
Board of Regents' Award for Excellence in Teaching (2004)