Brian Croxall

Brian Croxall

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Academic Appointments

• Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of English, Clemson University, 2009-present
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of English, Emory University, 2008-2009

Education

• Ph.D. in English literature, certificate in Psychoanalytic Studies, Emory University, August 2008
  • Dissertation Committee: John Johnston (adviser), Cathy Caruth, and Walter Kalaidjian
• M.A. in English literature, Emory University, May 2006
• B.A. magna cum laude in Humanities: English literature emphasis and Music, Brigham Young University, April 2002

Research and Teaching Interests

• Twentieth- and twenty-first-century American fiction; American literature after 1865; technology; trauma theory and psychoanalysis; media theory; social media; electronic literature and new media; critical theory; war fiction

Publications

Articles

• “‘Becoming Another Thing’: Trauma and Technology in The Red Badge of Courage,” American Imago, forthcoming 2010
• “Industrial Evolution: Steampunk’s Predecessors and Present,” co-authored with Rachel Bowser (University of South Carolina-Beaufort), Introduction to Neo-Victorian Studies 2.3, forthcoming 2010

Reviews

• Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, eds., First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, The Iowa Review Web 6.4 (2004), <http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/tirweb/feature/ firstperson/ index.html#>

Current Book and Collection Projects

• “Discourse Accidents: Technology Within the Stories of Trauma”

This project argues that technology has been central to the discourse of psychic trauma, both within American fiction and theories of psychology. Reading Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms in tandem with the rise of psychoanalysis, the book traces how technology becomes both the cause of wounds and the means to represent their effect on the mind. To account for the tendency to yoke technology and trauma, the manuscript then moves toward the present and considers Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon in light of the work of contemporary trauma theorists to explore how technology and trauma are both understood in terms of velocity and speed. Moving across fiction and psychology from the late nineteenth century to the twenty-first, “Discourse Accidents” ultimately rethinks the historicity of the discourse of trauma to explore how tropes of technology have repeatedly sutured the gaps of language opened by trauma.

• “‘What Are You Doing?’ Code, Communication, and Creativity on Twitter”

This manuscript examines how Twitter is constrained, determined, and enabled by its computational platform. Along with the history of the company and the structure of its APIs, the book will examine how individual users have expanded the service’s communicative possibilities by adapting language within the service and leveraging it for real-time, distributed group communication. Co-authored project with Matthew Gold (CUNY), John Jones (UT-Austin), and David Parry (UT-Dallas).

• “Steampunk, Science, and (Neo)Victorian Technologies,” Neo-Victorian Studies 2.3 (forthcoming 2010)

A special issue of the peer-reviewed journal devoted to the subject of steampunk and Victorian culture, the topics covered include technology, gender, empire, aesthetics, and considers the complicated relationships among different forms of steampunk text (literature, film, art) and the “maker,” fan, and fashion movements. Invited to design and edit the special issue with Rachel Bowser (University of South Carolina-Beaufort).

Honors and Awards

• Associate Fellow of the Scholars’ Lab, NEH-funded Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship, University of Virginia, 2009-2010
• Travel Award, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, 2008
• Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship, Georgia Tech University, 2008 (declined)
• Robert W. Woodruff Library Graduate Fellowship, Emory’s Center for Interactive Teaching (ECIT), Emory University, 2007-2008
• Ernest Hemingway Research Grant, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, 2007
• Dean’s Writing Center Fellowship, Emory University, 2006-2007
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Summer Dissertation Seminar, “Critical Engagement, Community and the Subjects of Art History,” Emory University, 2006
• James Hinkle Travel Grant, Hemingway Society, 2004
• Full Graduate Fellowship, Emory University, 2002-2006

Selected Presentations

• “The Absent Presence: Today’s Faculty,” Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 2009
• “Material History: The Textures, Timing and Things of Steampunk,” South Atlanta Modern Language Association Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, November 2009
• “Interactive Timelines,” The Humanities and Technology Camp, Fairfax, Virginia, June 2009
• “MicroBlogging: Producing Discourses in 140 Characters or Less,” Panel Chair, Modern Language Association Conference, San Francisco, California, December 2008
• “Industrial Evolution: Steampunk’s Predecessors and Present,” Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina, November 2008
• “Writing Wounds with Technology: Figuring Trauma in A Farewell to Arms,” Thirteenth International Ernest Hemingway Society Conference, Kansas City, Kansas, June 2008
• “Gramophone, Film, Trauma-Writer: Trauma’s Discursive Dependence on Media,” Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 2006
• “Novus Ordo Temporum: Trauma, Temporality, Virilio, and Cryptonomicon,” Thirty-fourth Annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture since 1900, Louisville, Kentucky, February 2006
• “The Uncertainties and Consequences of Gender in Black Eagle Child,” Sixteenth American Literature Association Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, May 2005
• “Splitting a Plate: The Paranoid-Schizoid Position in The Garden of Eden,” Eleventh International Ernest Hemingway Society Conference, Key West, Florida, June 2004
• “The Hypertextual Remediation of Body as Network,” Eleventh Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media, DeKalb, Illinois, April 2004
• “A Portrait of the Flâneur as a Young Man: Exploring the Role of the Street Detective in (Reading) Joyce’s Portrait,” Twelfth Central New York Conference on Language and Literature, Cortland, New York, October 2002
• “‘Strange Prayers and Praises’: Death of Religion in Joyce’s ‘Araby,’” Sigma Tau Delta National Convention, Boise, Idaho, March 2002

Courses Taught

• Reading Media and Technology in Contemporary Literature and Theory, English 465, Clemson University, Spring 2010; advanced course for majors
• American Literature Survey II, English 399, Clemson University, Spring 2010; required course for majors
• Critical Writing About Literature, English 310, Clemson University, Fall 2009; required course for majors
• World Literature, English 212, Clemson University, Fall 2009; fulfills sophomore literature requirement
• American Literature, 1865 to Present, English 251, Emory University, Spring 2009; required course for majors
• Poetry, English 205, Emory University, Spring 2009; required, introductory course for majors, fulfills writing requirement
• Introduction to Media Theory and Media Fiction, English 389WR and Comparative Literature 389WR, Emory University, Fall 2008; advanced course for majors and non-majors, fulfills writing requirement
• Reading, Writing, and War, English 181, Emory University, Fall 2008; introductory course in writing about literature, fulfills writing requirement
• Bodies in Warfare, English 181, Emory University, Spring 2005; introductory course in writing about literature, fulfills writing requirement
• The Buying and Selling of Your Body, English 101, Emory University, Fall 2004; first-year composition course, fulfills writing requirement

Other Teaching Experience

• Teaching Assistant Training and Teaching Opportunity (TATTO) Faculty, Emory University, 2008 and 2009; co-taught two large seminars on engaging students; taught nine seminars on basic pedagogical preparation; provided and facilitated pedagogical feedback for two groups of graduate students
• Woodruff Library Fellow, Emory Center for Interactive Teaching, Emory University, 2007-2008; taught faculty and graduate students individually and in intensive seminars to select and to deploy technologies appropriate for particular pedagogical situations and goals; worked with Graduate School to implement additional pedagogical workshops on technology suited for each discipline’s needs
• Dean’s Writing Center Fellow, Emory University, 2006-2007; instructor for graduate and undergraduate writers, including non-native English speakers, across the academic community; mentor for undergraduate tutors in the Center

Digital Projects

• Teaching Wiki: Repository of syllabi, assignments, and materials for my courses
• Timeline Tutorial: Documentation for creating collaborative, dynamic, interactive timelines using the Simile Project’s Exhibit and Timeline scripts and Google Docs

Digital Collaborations

• The “American Century” Timeline, developer, January 2009-present
• Victorian Age Timeline, co-developer, January 2008-present
• Emory Graduate English Program Wiki, co-developer and co-author, 2007-2009

Professional Service and Activities

• Referee, Cambridge University Press and Routledge
• Contributing Writer, Prof. Hacker: Tips & Tutorials for Higher Ed,
• Research Associate, Electronic Literature Organization Directory and Archive-It Collection, 2008-2009
• Research Associate, electronic book review, 2008
• Founder, Emory University Kemp Malone Lecture and Seminar Series, 2004; Committee Chair, 2004-2006; Committee Member, 2006-2008
  • Annual lecture and seminar series given by scholars selected by the graduate students of the English Department, whose work is of import to the entire student body of Emory University. The event is organized entirely by graduate students. Past speakers include Joseph Slaughter, Stephen Greenblatt, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Bruce Robbins, Kirsten Silva Gruesz, and Carl P. Eby.
• Graduate Research Fellow, The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett, Emory University, 2003-2006
• Elected Member, Emory Graduate English Advisory Committee, 2005-2006
• Member of Planning Committee, “Event of War” Conference (keynote speaker: Robert Jay Lifton), Emory Comparative Literature Department, 2004

Professional Affiliations

• Modern Language Association
• American Literature Association
• South Atlantic Modern Language Association
• Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
• Electronic Literature Organization
• The Hemingway Society
• Digital Americanists

Languages

• Dutch, fluent
• French, reading knowledge
• XHTML, CSS

References

• John Johnston, Professor of English, Emory University
• Cathy Caruth, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Emory University
• Walter Kalaidjian, Professor of English, Emory University
• Susanna Ashton, Associate Chair and Associate Professor of English, Clemson University
• Michael Elliott, Winship Distinguished Research Professor of English and American Studies, Emory University
• Deborah Ayer, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Writing Center, Emory University
• Wayne Morse, Director of Emory’s Center for Interactive Teaching (ECIT)