Literary Theory – The Philosophy of Contemporary Song

Updates on Publishing

First, Writing for College and Beyond is now out and desk and review copies are available. Check out the book site, and if you’re a first-year writing instructor and would like a review or desk copy, or would like to review it for your journal, email me. Next, Reading as Democracy in Crisis: Interpretation,Continue reading “Updates on Publishing”

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Reading as Democracy in Crisis Now Available for Purchase

I’m pleased to announce that Reading as Democracy in Crisis: Interpretation, Theory, History is now available for order on Rowman & Littlefield’s website. The chapters in this book demonstrate how the variety of reading strategies represented by the figures and movements discussed within its pages were motivated in part by different historical circumstances, many of which involvedContinue reading “Reading as Democracy in Crisis Now Available for Purchase”

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Reading as Democracy in Crisis: Interpretation, Theory, History

I’m pleased to announce that Reading as Democracy in Crisis: Interpretation, Theory, History was made available for purchase by Lexington Books, the academic imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, in April of 2019. The featured image above by photographer Rebekah Rovira is the full image used for the cover — you can view actual cover on thisContinue reading “Reading as Democracy in Crisis: Interpretation, Theory, History”

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Notes on Derrida

I’ve been reading Derrida for a forthcoming publication, so I’m just thinking out loud here. I invite other readers to join with me. Nothing I’m writing here attempts to engage the published scholarship on these topics. Comments on Writing and Difference: For being an atheist, he writes a lot about God. His engagement with negative theology isContinue reading “Notes on Derrida”

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Authorial Intent and Ham Sandwiches

I regularly teach both literature and literary theory courses, so I’m regularly confronted with the problem of interpreting literature. What defines meaning in a literary work? The default position is “the author’s intent,” and people generally think that if you were to somehow distance linguistic meaning from authorial intent that words might come to meanContinue reading “Authorial Intent and Ham Sandwiches”