2496 Bernel Road, State College, PA 16803-3713 (814) 355-4092
iqn@psu.edu http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/i/q/iqn/
English Department,
Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802 (814) 863-2342
CV (2008)
A.B. Harvard
University 1967
M.A. University
of Pennsylvania 1968
Ph.D. University
of Pennsylvania 1971
Fields of Specialization:
Contemporary
Fiction; the fantastic elements in fiction; formerly Middle English, Old
English, and Old Norse literatures
Positions Held:
1969-73 Lecturer, Cornell University and
University of Virginia
1973-77 Assistant Professor, Cornell University
1977-86 Associate Professor, Penn State
University
1986-93 Professor, Penn State University
1993-2005 Distinguished Professor, Penn State University
2005- Edwin Erle Sparks Professor, Penn State
University
THE OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE: The Poem and its Critics.
Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1975. Pp. xiii+139.
Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in
Western Literature. London: Methuen, 1984. Pp. xvi+213. Translated into Korean (Seoul: PurunNamu, 2000).
Pynchon’s Mythography: An Approach to GRAVITY’S
RAINBOW. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. Pp. xxiv+262.
Calvino’s Fictions: Cogito and Cosmos.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Pp. [x+] 212.
American Dream, American Nightmare: Fiction since
1960. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Pp.
359. Reprinted in China.
Surviving your Academic Job Hunt: Advice for
Humanities PhDs. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005. Pp.
viii + 215.
ARTICLES:
Contemporary Fiction,
Fantastic Fiction:
“Romance:
A Perdurable Pattern,” College English 36 (1974): 129-146.
“C. S. Lewis’ Trilogy: A Cosmic Romance,” Modern
Fiction Studies 20 (1974-75):
505-517.
“Visionary Allegory in David Lindsay’s A Voyage
to Arcturus,” Journal of English
and Germanic Philology 77 (1978):
72-91.
“Robert Coover’s Fiction: The Naked and the Mythic,”
Novel 12 (1979): 127-148.
“The Heraclitean Cosmos of Kurt Vonnegut,” Papers
on Language and Literature 18
(1982): 208-224.
“Medieval Romance and Science Fiction: The Anatomy
of a Resemblance,” Journal of Popular Culture 16 (1982): 15-26.
“Science and Imagination in Calvino’s Cosmicomics,” Mosaic 15 (December, 1982): 47-58.
“Vonnegut’s Self-Projections: Symbolic Characters
and Symbolic Fictions,” Journal of Narrative Technique 12 (1982): 177-190.
“Kurt Vonnegut and the Myths and Symbols of
Meaning,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 24 (1982): 429-447.
“The Hidden Dynamics of The War of the Worlds,” Philological Quarterly 62 (1983): 279-292.
“The Edifice Complex: Motive and Accomplishment in
Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise,” Extrapolation 24 (1983): 380-388.
“Italo Calvino’s Cosmic Comedy: Mythography for the
Scientific Age,” Papers on Language and Literature 20 (1984): 80-95.
“Orpheus and the Orphic Voice in Gravity’s
Rainbow,” written in collaboration
with Thomas J. Knight, Philological Quarterly 64 (1985): 299-315.
“Pynchon’s Orchestration of Gravity’s Rainbow,” written in collaboration with Thomas J. Knight, Journal
of English and Germanic Philology
85 (1986): 366-385.
“Calvino’s Framed Narrations: Writers, Readers, and
Reality,” Review of Contemporary Fiction 6.2 (1986): 71-80.
“Gravity’s Rainbow: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Mythology,” in Intersections:
Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed.
George E. Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1987), pp. 190-200.
“La commedia cosmica di Italo Calvino: una
mitografia per l’età della scienza,” Nuova Corrente 34 (1987): 85-106 (a translation of “Italo
Calvino’s Cosmic Comedy: Mythography for the Scientific Age”).
“Calvino’s La memoria del mondo: The Forgotten Record of Lost Worlds,” in Calvino
Revisited, ed. Franco Ricci,
University of Toronto Italian Studies 2 (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1989), pp.
85-102.
“Views from Above, Views from Below: The
Perspectival Subtext in Gravity’s Rainbow,” American Literature
60.4 (1988): 625-642.
“Eat or be Eaten: H. G. Wells’s Time Machine,” Philological Quarterly 69.2 (1990): 233-251.
“Grains of Sand in a Sea of Objects: Italo Calvino
as Essayist,” Modern Language Review 87.1 (1992): 72-85.
“Sensuality and the Senses in Calvino’s Fiction,” MLN 107 (1992): 160-177.
“Repetition and the Construction of Character in Gravity’s
Rainbow,” Critique 33.4 (1992): 243-254.
“Ishmael Reed and the Problematics of Control,” PMLA 108.3 (1993): 506-518.
“Taking a Stand while Lacking a Center: Rushdie’s
Postmodern Politics,” Philological Quarterly 74.2 (1995): 209-230.
“William Burroughs’s Phantasmic Geography,” Contemporary
Literature 40.1 (1999): 111-135.
“Vonnegut’s Melancholy,” Philological Quarterly 77 (1998): 221-238.
“Books of the Dead: Postmortem Politics in Novels by
Mailer, Burroughs, Acker, and Pynchon,” Modern Philology 97.3 (2000): 417-444.
“Brautigan’s Psychomachia,” Mosaic 34.1 (2001): 75-92.
“Voice in Kathy Acker’s Fiction,” Contemporary
Literature 42.3 (2001): 485-513.
“The Semiotics of Fantasy in William Kennedy’s
Fiction,” Philological Quarterly
79.4 (2000): 523-548.
“Robert Coover: The Metaphysics of Bondage,” Modern
Language Review 98.4 (2003):
827-841.
“Quest Romance in Science Fiction,” in A
Companion to Romance, ed. Corinne
Saunders (Oxford: Blackwells Publishing, 2004): 488-501.
“ ‘Dimensions’ and John Edgar Wideman’s Mental
Cosmology.” Contemporary
Literature 44.4 (2003): 697-726.
“Black Urban Utopia in Wideman’s Later Fiction,” Race
and Class 45.3 (2004): 19-34.
“Narrative Speed in Contemporary Fiction.” Narrative 13.2 (2005): 105-124.
“Speed, Rhythm, Movement: A Dialogue on K. Hume’s
Article ‘Narrative Speed’.” With
Jan Baetens. Narrative 14.3 (2006): 349-355.
“Gerald Vizenor’s Metaphysics.” Contemporary Literature 48.4 (2007): 580-612.
“Diffused Satire in Contemporary American
Fiction.” Modern Philology 105.2 (2007): 300-325.
Professionalism
“Department Politics as a Foreign Language,” Chronicle
of Higher Education, January 31,
2003, B5.
Middle English (and
Anglo-Latin)
Leprosy or Syphilis in Henryson’s Testament of
Cresseid?” English Language Notes 6 (1969): 242-245.
“Why Chaucer Calls the Franklin’s Tale a Breton Lai,” Philological Quarterly 51 (1972): 365-379.
“The Pagan Setting of the Franklin’s Tale and the Sources of Dorigen’s Cosmology,” Studia
Neophilologica 44 (1972): 289-294.
“Amis and Amiloun and the Aesthetics of Middle English Romance,” Studies
in Philology 70 (1973): 19-41.
“The Formal Nature of Middle English Romance,” Philological
Quarterly 53 (1974): 158-180.
“The Composition of a Medieval Romance: Walter Map’s
Sadius and Galo,” Neuphilologische
Mitteilungen 76 (1975): 415-423.
Old English
“The Function of the hrefn blaca: Beowulf 1801,” Modern Philology
67 (1969): 60-63.
“The Concept of the Hall in Old English Poetry,” Anglo-Saxon
England 3 (1974): 63-74.
“The Theme and Structure of Beowulf,” Studies in Philology 72 (1975): 1-27.
“The ‘ruin-motif’ in Old English Poetry,” Anglia 94 (1976): 339-360.
Old Norse
“Structure and Perspective: Romance and Hagiographic
Features in the Amicus and Amelius Story,” Journal of English and Germanic
Philology 69 (1970): 89-107.
“Beginnings and Endings in the Icelandic Family
Sagas,” Modern Language Review
68 (1973): 593-606.
“The Thematic Design of Grettis saga,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 73 (1974): 469-486.
“From Saga to Romance: The Uses of Monsters in Old
Norse Literature,” Studies in Philology 77 (1980): 1-25.
“Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar,” an entry in the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 5 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985).
BOOK REVIEWS:
Eyrbyggja saga, translated by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, Journal of English
and Germanic Philology 73 (1974):
576‑578.
The Laxdoela Saga: Its Structural Patterns by A. Margaret A. Madelung, Speculum 50 (1975): 516‑520.
The Secular Scripture: A Study of the
Structure of Romance by Northrop
Frye, Style 11 (1977): 212‑213.
Modern Fantasy: Five Studies by C. N. Manlove, Yearbook of English
Studies 7 (1977): 286‑287.
Curiosity and Pilgrimage: The Literature of
Discovery in Fourteenth Century England by Christian K. Zacher, Journal of English and Germanic
Philology 76 (1977): 123‑125.
Miðaldaæventýri Þýdd úr Ensku, ed. Einar G. Pétursson, Journal of
English and Germanic Philology 77
(1978): 130‑131.
Erex saga and Ivens saga, translated, with an introduction, by Foster
W. Blaisdell, Jr., and Marianne E. Kalinke, Journal of English and
Germanic Philology 77 (1978): 310‑311.
The Happening Worlds of John
Brunner: Critical Explorations in Science Fiction, ed. Joe De Bolt, Modern Language Review 74 (1979): 192‑193.
The Game of the Impossible: A Rhetoric of
Fantasy by W. R. Irwin, Modern
Language Review 74 (1979): 680‑681.
Eilhart von Oberge’s TRISTRANT, translated, with an introduction, by
J. W. Thomas, Journal of English and Germanic Philology
78
(l979): 86‑88.
American Visionary Fiction: Mad Metaphysics
as Salvation Psychology by Richard
Finholt, Modern Language Review
75 (1980): 638‑639.
Strengleikar: An Old Norse Translation of
Twenty‑one Old French Lais,
eds. Robert Cook and Mattias Tveitane, Scandinavian Studies 53 (1981): 468‑469.
Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics
and History of a Literary Genre by
Darko Suvin, Yearbook of English Studies 12 (1982): 347‑348.
Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy
in the Middle Ages by Bruce
E. Gelsinger, Scandinavian Studies 54 (1982): 259‑261.
Karlamagnus saga Branches I, III, VII, et IX, Norse text edited by Agnete Loth; French
translation by Annette Patron‑Godefroit, and editorial study by Povl
Skarup, Scandinavian Studies 54
(1982): 256‑257.
The Literature of Terror: A History of
Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the present day by David Punter, Modern Language Review 78 (1983): 152‑153.
The Life and Works of David Lindsay by Bernard Sellin, Yearbook of English Studies 15 (1985): 335‑336.
Robert Coover by Richard Andersen, Modern Language Review 80 (1985): 150.
Four Contemporary Novelists: Angus Wilson,
Brian Moore, John Fowles, V.S. Naipaul by Kerry McSweeney, Modern Language Review 82.3 (1987): 726-727.
In Defence of Fantasy by Ann Swinfen, and Magical Thought in Creative
Writing by Anne Wilson, Modern
Language Review 83.1 (1988):
179-180.
Robert Coover’s Fictions by Jackson I. Cope, Novel 22.1 (1988): 122-123.
The Style of Connectedness: GRAVITY’S RAINBOW and
Thomas Pynchon by Thomas Moore, Pynchon
Notes, 18-19 (1986), 116-117.
War Stars: The Superweapon and the American
Imagination by H. Bruce Franklin, American
Literature 61.3 (1989): 469-470.
The Gnostic Pynchon by Dwight Eddins, American Literature, 63.2 (1991): 358-359.
The Politics of Postmodernism by Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto
Quarterly, 61.1 (1991): 117-118.
Constructing Postmodernism by Brian McHale, American Literature 66.1 (1994): 206-207.
The Play of the Double in Postmodern American
Fiction by Gordon E. Slethaug, Modern
Fiction Studies 40.4 (1994):
859-861.
Late Imperial Romance by John McClure, American Literature 67.1 (1995): 175-176.
Painting with Words, Writing with Pictures: Word
and Image Relations in the Work of Italo Calvino by Franco Ricci, University of Toronto Quarterly 72.1 (Winter, 2002/03): 545-546.
Glorificemus: A Study of the Fiction of Walter M.
Miller, Jr. by Rose Secrest. Utopian Studies 14.1 (2003): 258-259.
Amy Tan
by Bella Adams. MELUS 30.4 (2005): 181-184.
Thomas Pynchon: Reading from
the Margins. Ed.
Niran Abbas. Studies in the
Novel 37.1
(2005): 99-101.
Courses Taught (at Cornell
University and Pennsylvania State University):
Undergraduate:
Middle
English Literature
Survey of Old and Middle English Literature (in
translation)
Chaucer
Theory
of the Romance Form
Fantasy (a multi‑section freshman seminar course
run under my direction)
Science
Fiction
Survey
of English Literature (Beowulf
to the Romantics)
Introduction
to Drama
Introduction
to Literature
Shakespeare
and Modern Authors
Politics
and Literature
The
Bible and Ancient Authors
The
Literature of Fantasy (a lecture course)
Technical Writing (I ran the teacher training
program for this multi‑sectioned course for two years)
Freshman
Composition
American
Fiction since 1945 (numerous versions)
The
Great Tradition in English Literature
Three
honors seminars on contemporary fiction
British
Fiction since 1945
Exploring Traditions: Literary Doubles (e.g. Beowulf and Grendel)
Graduate:
Advanced
Technical Writing
Thesis
Writing/Professional Writing
Introduction
to Old English
Fiction
of the last 20 years (new reading list each time)
Article
Writing Workshop combined with training in Professionalism
Consulting Editor: Critique:
Studies in Contemporary Fiction
1988-
Editorial Board Member: Journal
of the Fantastic in the Arts
1989-94; 2004-
Advisory Committee Member: PMLA 1994-1997
Journals for which I have
served as reader:
Chaucer
Review; Contemporary Literature; Critique; Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts; MELUS, Modern Fiction Studies; Modern Language Studies; Mosaic;
Papers on Language and Literature;
Philological Quarterly; Poetics
Today; PMLA; Scandinavian Studies; Studies in the Novel; Style;
Texas Studies in Literature and Language
Presses for which I have
read scholarly and critical manuscripts:
Cornell
University Press; Southern Illinois University Press; University of Wisconsin
Press; Methuen; Kent State University Press; Princeton University Press; The
Pennsylvania State University Press; UMI Research Press; University of Toronto
Press, University of Pennsylvania Press; University of Alabama Press;
University Press of Florida; Duke University Press; State University of New
York Press; University of South Carolina Press; University of Illinois Press;
University Press of Virginia
Presses for which I have
read technical writing manuscripts:
Scott,
Foresman; Wadsworth; Allyn and Bacon; St. Martin’s
Awards:
Eaton
Award 1986 for Fantasy and Mimesis
Distinguished
Scholar Award 1988 from the International Association for the Fantastic in the
Arts
Thesis Students:
1985 Debra Moddelmog Full Prof, Ohio State University
1987 U. Ramdas Rao position in India unknown
1991 Amy Elias Assoc. Prof. University of Tennessee
1995 Daniel Punday Assoc. Prof. Purdue University, Calumet
1997 Kelly Marsh Assoc. Prof. Mississippi State University
1997 Umeeta Sadarangani Assoc. Prof. Parkland College
1998 Jamil Khader Assoc. Prof. Stetson University
1998 Neill Johnson admin at PSU (Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching)
2002 Ylce Irizarry Assistant Prof. East Carolina University
2003 Marco Abel Assistant Prof. University of Nebraska
2005 Holly Flint Assistant Prof. University of Alabama, Huntsville