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Hired as a generalist, possibly because my doctorate
is in English and Humanities, I came to Hawaii in 1980. Since then,
I have lived up to my generalist billing by teaching over three
dozen courses, including all of the non dramatic courses that we
offer in 16th and 17th century literature, most (five out of seven)
of our sophomore-level introduction to literature courses, several
upper and lower division composition courses, and many self designed
courses, including half a dozen graduate courses. In 2004-2005 I
will be teaching three new self-designed courses: a senior-level
course in science fiction, a university honors colloquium in utopian
and dystopian literature, and a graduate course also in utopian
and dystopian literature. After a hiatus from almost a decade of
department administration (director of composition, l990 92; associate
chair, 1992 94, 1997 1999; acting chair, spring 1995), I am currently
the department's director of composition and rhetoric (2002-present).
Among other things, this means getting to teach our peer-tutor training
class, helping to mentor our new Ph.D. graduate assistants as they
prepare for and then teach in our first-year writing program, and
serving on university committees that oversee foundation and writing-intensive
requirements. (Truth in advertising: I am more a rhetorician than
a composition specialist--my dissertation, for instance, was a rhetorical
analysis of the speeches in Paradise Lost; and I have taught only
the graduate seminar in rhetoric.) I have published in Milton
Quarterly, Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Studies,
Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation, and various
science fiction reference works. My current research investigates
the presence of the picaresque genre and mode in modern British
and American science fiction; I am also just beginning to explore
the theme of friendship in Paradise Lost. Finally, as president
of Children's Literature Hawai'i, I help put on the Biennial Conference
on Literature and Hawai'i's Children, co-sponsored by the UH-Manoa
Department of English.
Areas of Interest
Renaissance and 17th-century literature,
Milton, rhetoric, science fiction
Education
BA, Stanford University
MA, Indiana University
PhD, Stanford University
Awards
Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching
1990
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