Name: Dr. Thomas R. Smith
Rank: Assistant Professor of English
Office address: 119 Sutherland
Phone Number: (215)881-7543
E-mail: trs8@psu.edu
Iinstitution(s) where degrees were earned:
B.A. (English) Amherst College
M.A. (English Literature) University of Leeds, U.K.
Ph.D. (English) Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Names and numbers of courses taught:
English 30: Honors Freshman Composition
English 182: Literature and Empire
English 200: Introduction to Critical Reading
English 202c: Technical Writing
English 263: Introduction to Poetry
English 401: Studies in Genre (Autobiography)
English 414: Biographical Writing
English 452: The Victorians
English 458: Twentieth-Century Poetry
English 487w: Senior Seminar (20th-Century Poetry and War Stories/Love Stories)
Short description of any research interests :
19th- and 20th-century autobiography, particularly British. I am also interested in travel writing as self-representational writing. In 2005 I became the editor of Lifewriting Annual , a scholarly annual published by AMS Press. From 1990 I was co-editor of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies , for which I guest edited a special issue, “Autobiography and Neuroscience” in 1998. I am currently a member of (a/b) Editorial Board.
Publications:
Book Chapters :
"Slipping Away, Sliding Off: Teaching Autobiography as History and Genre." Approaches to Teaching Lifewriting Eds. Miriam Fuchs and Craig Howes. New York: Modern Language Association. 2005.
"Harriet Martineau." In An Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography. Vol. 2. Ed. Victoria Boynton and Jo Malin. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 374-76.
"Agency." The Encyclopedia of Life Writing. Ed. Margaretta Jolly. Vol. 1. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001. 28-29.
"Roland Barthes vu par Roland Barthes: Word and Image in Barthes' Autobiography." Semiotics 1994. Eds. C.W. Spinks and John Deely. New York: Peter Lang, 1995. 118-34. (Proceedings of the 1994 meeting of the Semiotic Society of America).
"Sidelights" on H.H. Munro (Saki). Contemporary Authors, 130. Detroit: Gale Research, 1990. 347-51.
"Descriptions of Major Characters in Five John O'Hara Novels." Dictionary of American Literary Characters. Ed. Benjamin F. Fisher. 1st ed. New York: Facts on File, 1990.
"Bringing Black American Literature into an Introductory Literature Classroom" in Towards a More Inclusive Curriculum: The Integration of Gender, Race, and Class. Ed. Colette Hall. Gaithersburg, MD: Belles Lettres, 1989. 18-19.
"The Objectivity of The Education of Henry Adams" in Studies in Autobiography. Ed. James Olney. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. 151-62.
(with E.W. Smith). Edward G. Fox: One Year Younger Than the Century. Pottsville, PA: Schuylkill County Council on the Arts, 1988.
"Wyndham Lewis." In Academic American Encyclopedia, 12. Princeton: Arete Publishing, 1980. 307.
Refereed Articles:
“Generating Selves: Issues of Self-Representation." Accepted by a/b: Auto/Biography Studies
Forthcoming 2005.
"Blurring Distinctions: Autobiography and Identity in Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines . " The Bucknell Review 47.2 (2004): 90-103.
"Introduction" and editorial notes to "Preliminary Aside to the Reader: Regarding Gossip, and its Pitfalls" by Wyndham Lewis (previously unpublished ms.). Modernism/Modernity 4, 2 (April 1997): 181-87.
"The Autobiography in 'The Tremolino': Ritual Violence as Fictional Screen." Conradiana , 28, 1 (1996): 26-33.
"The Double Aim of Yeats's Autobiography ." The Yeats-Eliot Review 10, 4 (Fall 1990): 95-101.
"The Mystical Vineyard in George Herbert's 'Redemption.'" Studia Mystica 13, 1 (Spring 1990): 46-54.
Review Essays:
"Narrative and Consciousness: Review Article." [on Narrative and Consciousness: Literature, Psychology and the Brain. Ed. Gary D. Fireman, Ted E. McVay, Jr., and Owen J. Flanagan. New York: Oxford UP, 2003.] Journal of Consciousness Studies. 11.5-6 (2004): 146-55.
"Who We Say We Are Is Who We Were," review essay of The Figures of Autobiography by Avrom Fleishman. The Southern Review 20, 2 (Spring 1984), 474-82.
"Writing on Written Lives," review essay of The Forms of Autobiography by William C. Spengemann, Women's Autobiography , ed. Estelle C. Jelinek, and Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical , ed. James Olney. The Hudson Review 34, 2 (Summer 1981), 290-98.
"Opening a Literary Time Capsule," review essay of Frederic Jameson's Fables of Aggression . The Hudson Review 33, 2 (Summer 1980), 288-92.
Reviews:
[Review], Self-Same Songs: Autobiographical Performances and Reflections by Roger J. Porter . a/b: Auto/Biography Studies . Forthcoming
Review], Mirror Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography by Susanna Egan. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Forthcoming. Currently available at http://facstaff.uww.edu/
hoganj/Smith162.htm
[Review], The Romantic Subject in Autobiography: Rousseau and Goethe by Eugene L. Stelzig. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 17.2 (Winter 2002): 309-16.
[Review], How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves by Paul John Eakin. biography: an interdisciplinary quarterly 23.3 (Summer 2000): 534-38.
[Review], John Stuart Mill and the Writing of Character by Janice Carlisle. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies , 8,1 (Spring 1993): 128-32.
[Review], Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography by G. Thomas Couser. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 6, 2 (Fall 1991): 286-91.
[Review], The Stock of Available Reality: R.P. Blackmur and John Berryman by James D. Bloom. South Atlantic Review , 52, 1 (January 1987): 112-15.
"A Surprise Gift for the Reader," review of Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Invention , by Paul John Eakin. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 2, 1 (Spring 1986): 7-8, 28.
"The Puzzling Life of Wyndham Lewis," review of The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis by Jeffrey Meyers. The Boston Sunday Globe , (April 18, 1982): A10.
Other Publications:
"Taken In." Rite of Passage: Backpacking 'Round Europe. Ed. Lisa Johnson . Melbourne, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications, 2003. 40-43.
Guest Editor, "Autobiography and Neuroscience." a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 13.2 (Spring 1998). Wrote "Introduction: Autobiography in Fresh Contexts" and compiled "Autobiography and Neuroscience: Selected Bibliography" (annotated).
"Jay Parini: Coal-Region Writer Mines His Past." Scranton, PA: The Sunday Times . Sept. 22, 1985, W-7.
