Interests

I work primarily on modernism and twentieth-century American literature and culture. I have recently completed a monograph on Vladimir Nabokov which reads his treatment of fictional time in the context of twentieth-century history and notions of aesthetic autonomy. I am now working on a project which examines a series of transatlantic encounters between European high culture and the American culture industry in the mid-twentieth century, addressing a range of intellectuals, writers and artists from George Grosz and Saul Steinberg to Raymond Chandler and CLR James.  In both projects I am interested in the work of Theodor Adorno and the legacy of the Frankfurt School in contemporary critical theory. My research interests also include the afterlife of decadence in twentieth century and contemporary fiction, the American novel after 1960, postmodernism, genre theory, and crime fiction.

Research Supervision

I am interesting in supervising postgraduate research on any aspect of modern and contemporary American literature and theory intersecting with my research interests.

Teaching

EN331: Readings in the Twentieth Century (Stage One)

EN628: Early American Literature (Stage Two)

EN630: Modern American Literature (Stage Two)

EN658: American Crime Fiction (Stage Three)

EN840: The Limits of Fiction: American Narrative in the Age of Postmodernism (MA)

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Monograph

Nabokov, History and the Texture of Time (Routledge, 2012)

Articles and chapters

“The Big Empty: Chandler’s Transatlantic Modernism.” Forthcoming in Modernism/modernity 20.1 (2013)

“Chandler’s Hardboiled England: Imperialism, World War Two and Transatlantic Exchange.” Post-45 (2012)

“Killing the Crime Novel: Martin Amis’ Night Train, Genre, and Literary Fiction.” Journal of Modern Literature 35.1 (2011).

“Transitions in Nabokov Studies.” Literature Compass 7.10 (2010).

“Lolita’s Time Leaks and Transatlantic Decadence.” European Journal of American Culture 28.2 (2009).

“Nabokov’s Dystopia: Bend Sinister, America and Mass Culture.” Journal of American Studies 48.1 (2009).

“Unpacking Nabokov’s Library: Historical Materialism and the Private Collection.” The Exhibit in the Text: The Museological Practices of Literature. Ed. Caroline Patey and Laura Scuriatti. Peter Lang (2009).

Edited Volume

Transitional Nabokov. Co-edited with Duncan White. Peter Lang (2009).

Reviews

Nabokov, Perversely by Eric Naiman. Slavonic and East European Review 89.2 (2011). READ

The Modernist Papers by Fredric Jameson. Modernism/Modernity 16.3 (2009). READ

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