Go directly to:
1. Academic Degrees
2. Employment History
3. Books
4. Articles, Book Chapters, Critical Introductions, Review Essays, Interviews
5. Reviews, Notes, Letters, Prefaces, Encyclopedia Articles
6. Reprints and Excerpts
7. Work in Progress
8. Presentations/Panel Organizing
9. Grants and Awards
10. Teaching
11. Service
Academic Degrees
Ph.D. with Honors, University of Chicago. 1976.
M.A., University of Chicago. 1971.
B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, Magna cum Laude, Radcliffe College. 1969.
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Employment History
Professor II, Rutgers-Newark, 2005-present.
Professor of English, Rutgers-Newark. 1995-2005.
Associate Professor of English, Rutgers-Newark, 1987-1995. Tenure awarded 1990.
Assistant Professor of English and American Studies, Northwestern U. 1980-87.
Assistant Professor of English, U of Wisconsin-Madison. 1976-79.
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Books
Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Making of the New Negro.Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2003.
Radical Representations: Politics and Form in US Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941. Durham and London: Duke UP. 1993.
Telling the Truth: The Theory and Practice of Documentary Fiction. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell UP, 1986.
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Articles, Book Chapters, Critical Introductions, Review Essays, Interviews
“The Proletarian Novel.” Forthcoming, Blackwell Companion to American Literature. Ed. John Matthews. 2006.
“Reading
Redness Redux: Ralph Ellison, Intertextuality, and Biographical
Criticism.” Journal of Narrative
Theory 34 (Fall 2004): 229-57.
"Race,
Class, and Communism: The Young Ralph Ellison and the 'Whole Left'." In Radical Relevance: Essays Toward a
Scholarship of the “Whole Left.” Ed. Steven Rosendale and Laura
Gray-Rosendale. Albany, NY: SUNY
P. 2004. 31-56.
"Looking
Backward, 2001-1969: Student Movements in the Era of 'Globalization.'" In
Amitava Kumar, ed., World Bank Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P. 2003. Pp. 26-39.
Interview
with Barbara Foley. Ed. Shaobo Xie and Fengzhen Wang. In Dialogues on Cultural Studies: Interviews with Contemporary
Critics. Calgary: University of Calgary P. 2003. Pp. 79-92."From Communism to Brotherhood: The Drafts of Invisible Man." In Bill V. Mullen and James A. Smethurst, eds., Left of the Color Line: Race, Radicalism and Twentieth-Century Literature of the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina P. 2003. Pp. 163-82.
“Ten Propositions on the Relationship of Marxism to Working-Class Studies.” Symposium on “Marxism and Working-Class Studies,” Rethinking Marxism, 14 (Fall 2002): 28-31.
"New
Historicism, Liberalism, and the Re-Marginalization of the Left." Review Essay on Sean McCann, Gumshoe
America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism;
Catherine Jurca, White Diaspora: The Suburb and the Twentieth-Century
American Novel; and Michael Szalay, New Deal Liberalism: American
Literature and the Invention of the Welfare State. minnesota review
n.s. 55-57, Special Issue on 50s Culture
(2002): 303-18.
"From
Situational Dialectics to Pseudo-Dialectics: Mao, Jiang, and Capitalist
Transition." Cultural Logic
5, 3 (Fall 2002). http://eserver.org/clogic/2002/foley.html
"The
Politics of Post-Positivist Realism." Cultural Logic 4, 2 (2002).
http://eserver.org/clogic/4-2/foley.html.
Interview
with Barbara Foley. Conducted by Leo
Parascondola. In Workplace:
E-Journal of the MLA Graduate Student Caucus. December 2000.
http://www.louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue6/foley.html.
"From
Wall Street to Astor Place: Historicizing Melville's 'Bartleby,'" American
Literature 72 (March 2000): 87-116.
"Reading
Redness: Politics and Audience in Ralph Ellison's Early Short Fiction," Journal
of Narrative Theory 29 (Fall 1999): 323-339.
"Theory
Into Practice: An Interview with Barbara Foley." Conducted by Richard Hancuff and Noreen O'Connor. minnesota review n.s. 50-51 (October
1999): 113-22.
"Roads
Taken and Not Taken: Anticommunism, Post-Marxism, and African American
Literature." Cultural Logic. Summer 1998. http://eserver.org/clogic/.
"Writing
Up the Working Class: The Proletarian Novel in the U.S." SAMAR 11
(Spring-Summer 1999): 26-30.
"Ralph
Ellison as Proletarian Journalist."
Science and Society 62 (Winter 1998-99): 537-56.
"In
the Land of Cotton: Economics and History in Jean Toomer's Cane." African American Review 32 (Summer
1998): 181-98.
Interview
with Barbara Foley. Conducted by Ron
Strickland. Mediations 21
(Spring 1998): 58-66.
"'Lepers
in the Acropolis': Liberalism, Capitalism, and the Crisis in Academic
Labor." Review Essay on Cary Nelson, Manifesto of a Tenured Radical,
and Cary Nelson, ed., Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis. Contemporary Literature 39 (Summer
1998): 317-36.
"The
Rhetoric of Anti-Communism in Invisible Man." College English 59 (September 1997):
530-47.
"Jean
Toomer's Washington and the Politics of Class: From 'Blue Veins' to
Seventh-Street Rebels." Modern
Fiction Studies 42 (Summer 1996): 289-322.
Winner of 1996 Margaret Church Award for best article published in MFS.
Introduction
to Myra Page, Moscow Yankee. The
Radical Novel in the United States Reconsidered Series. Ed. Alan Wald. Urbana and London: U of Illinois P. 1996. Pp. vii-xxvii.
"Renarrating
the Thirties in the Forties and Fifties." Prospects: An Annual of
American Cultural Studies. 20
(1995): 455-66.
"Jean
Toomer's Sparta." American
Literature 67 (December 1995): 747-775.
"What's
at Stake in the Culture Wars."
Review essay on Peter Shaw, Recovering American Literature; John
Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation; and
Gerald Graff, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can
Revitalize American Education. New
England Quarterly 68 (September 1995): 458-79.
"Proletarianism
Revised." Review essay on James D.
Bloom, Left Letters: The Culture Wars of Mike Gold and Joseph Freeman;
Walter Kalaidjian, American Culture Between the Wars: Revisionary Modernism
and Postmodern Critique; and Michael E. Staub, Voices of Persuasion:
Politics of Representation in 1930s America. minnesota review n.s. 43/44 (November 1995): 198-211.
"Wayne
Booth and the Politics of Ethics."
In Rhetoric and Pluralism: Legacies of Wayne Booth. Ed. Frederick J. Antczak. Columbus: Ohio SUP. 1995.
Pp. 135-52."Generic and Doctrinal Politics in the Proletarian Bildungsroman." In Understanding Narrative. Ohio SU Series on the Theory and Interpretation of Narrative. Ed. James Phelan and Peter Rabinowitz. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio SUP, 1994. Pp. 43- 64.
"Class." Rethinking Marxism. 5 (Summer 1992): 117-28.
"Race and Class in Radical African-American Fiction of the Depression Years." Nature, Society and Thought: A Journal of Dialectical and Historical Materialism. 3, 3 (1990): 305-24.
"Subversion
and Oppositionality in the Academy."
College Literature, Special Edition on The Politics of Teaching
Literature 17, 2/3 (1990): 64-79.
"Marxism
in the Post-Structuralist Moment: Some Notes on the Problem of Revising
Marx." Cultural Critique 15
(1990): 5-37."Women and the Left in the 1930s." American Literary History 2 (Spring 1990): 150-169.
"The
Politics of Poetics: Ideology and Narrative Form in Dreiser's An American
Tragedy and Wright's Native Son." In Narrative Poetics: Innovations, Limits, Challenges. Ed. James Phelan. Columbus, Ohio: Papers in Comparative Studies Vol. 5.
1986-87. Pp. 55-67.
"The
Politics of Deconstruction." Genre, Special Issue on
Deconstruction, 17 (Spring-Summer 1984): 113-34.
"Charles
Feidelson and the Deconstruction of American Literature." American Quarterly 36 (Spring 1984):
42-64.
"Fact,
Fiction, Fascism: Mimesis and Testimony in Holocaust Narrative." Comparative Literature 34 (Fall
1982): 330-360."The Treatment of Time in The Big Money: An Examination of Ideology and Literary Form." Modern Fiction Studies, Special Issue on John Dos Passos 26 (Autumn 1980): 447-467.
"History, Fiction, and the Ground Between: The Uses of the Documentary Mode in Black Literature." PMLA 95 (May 1980): 389- 403.
"Fact, Fiction, and 'Reality.'" Contemporary Literature 20 (Summer 1979): 357-78.
"History, Fiction, and Satirical Form: The Example of Dos Passos' 1919." Genre 12 (Fall 1979): 357-378.
"From
U. S. A. to Ragtime: Notes on the Forms of Historical
Consciousness in Modern Fiction." American
Literature 50 (March 1978): 85-105.
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Reviews, Notes, Letters, Prefaces, Encyclopedia Articles
“Richard Ohmann in the MLA.” Works and Days. Special Issue in Tribute to Richard Ohmann. Forthcoming 2006.
“Dos Passos, John.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood P. 2005. I: 208-10.
“Ellison, Ralph.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood P. 2005. I: 230-32.
“Invisible Man.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood P. 2005. II: 367-69.
“Page, Myra.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood P. 2005. II: 542-43.
“Toomer, Jean.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood P. 2005. III: 719-20.
“U.S.A. Trilogy.” Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood P. 2005. III: 726-28.
Review of Michel Warschawski, On the Border. Forthcoming Science and Society. 2006.
Review of Helen Langa, Radical Art: Printmaking and the Left in 1930s America. Forthcoming, Science and Society. Spring 2006.
Preface to Letters of Jean Toomer, ed. Mark Whalan. Forthcoming, University of Tennessee P. 2006.
Review of Max Shachtman, Race and Revolution, ed. Christopher Phelps. Forthcoming, Science and Society. Winter 2006.
Reply to Steven J. Whitfield. New England Quarterly 76 (December 2003): 661-62.
Review of Alan Wald, Exiles from a Future Time: The U.S. Writer and the Left. New England Quarterly 76 (September 2003): 490-92.
Review of Class and Its Others, ed. J. K. Gibson-Graham, Stephen A. Resnick, and Richard D. Wolff; and Re/Presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism, Ed. J. K. Gibson-Graham, Stephen A. Resnick, and Richard D. Wolff. Science and Society 67 (Summer 2003): 245-48.
"Proletarian Literature." Encyclopedia of American Studies. Vol. 3. New York: Grolier, 2002. Pp. 417-419.
Review of Erin A. Smith, Hard-Boiled: Working-Class Readers and Pulp Magazines. Journal of American History. Journal ofAmerican History (December 2001): 1126-27.
Review of Bill V. Mullen, Popular Fronts: African Americans and Communism, 1936-1945. African American Review 35 (Spring 2001): 8-9.
Review of Caren Irr, The Suburb of Dissent: Cultural Politics in the United States and Canada During the 1930s. American Historical Review 105 (December 2000): 1725-26.
Review of Robert B. Jones, ed., Jean Toomer: Selected Essays and Literary Criticism. Resources for American Literary Study 25, 1 (1999): 122-23.
Review of Fredric Jameson, The Seeds of Time. Modern Philology 94 (February 1997): 422-26.
Review of Douglas Wixson, Worker-Writer in America: Jack Conroy and the Tradition of Midwestern Literary Radicalism, 1898-1990. Modern Philology 94 (November 1996): 271-75.
Review of Carla Cappetti, Writing Chicago: Modernism, Ethnography, and the Novel. Modern Philology 94 (August 1996): 129-32.
Reply to Sanford Pinsker. New England Quarterly 59 (June 1996): 320-21.
Review of Constance Coiner, Better Red: The Writing and Resistance of Tillie Olsen and Meridel Le Sueur. American Literature 68 (June 1996): 485-86.
“The Federal Writers project.” In Encyclopedia of African American History and Culture. Ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith and Cornel West. 5 vols. v. 2. Pp. 946-48.
Review of Terry A. Cooney, Balancing Acts: American Thought and Culture in the 1930s. Journal of American History 82 (March 1996): 1625-26.
"Tillie Olsen." In A Companion to American Thought. Ed. Richard Wightman Fox and James T. Kloppenberg. Oxford and Cambridge: Basil Blackwell. 1995. Pp. 509-11.
Review of Michael E. Staub, Voices of Persuasion: Politics of Representation in 1930s America. American Literature 67 (September 1995): 403.
Review of Phyllis Frus, The Politics and Poetics of Journalistic Narrative: The Timely and the Timeless. Modern Fiction Studies 41 (Summer 1995): 344-46.
Review of Dana D. Nelson, The Word in Black and White: Reading 'Race' in American Literature, 1638-1867, and James S. Leonard et al., Black Perspectives on "Huckleberry Finn". Modern Philology 92 (February 1995): 379-85.
Review of Tobin Siebers, Cold War Criticism and the Politics of Skepticism. Modern Fiction Studies 40 (Winter 1995): 446-47.
Review of Alan A. Block, Anonymous Toil: A Re-evaluation of the American Radical Novel in the Twentieth Century. Modern Fiction Studies 40 (Autumn 1994): 153-54.
Review of James Murphy, The Proletarian Moment: The Controversy Over Leftism in Literature, and Lynn Hanley, Writing War: Fiction, Gender, and Memory. Modern Fiction Studies 38 (Autumn 1992): 989-91.
Review of Paula Rabinowitz, Labor and Desire: Women's Revolutionary Fiction in Depression America. American Literature 64 (December 1992): 837-39.
Review of Naomi Jacobs, The Character of Truth: Historical Figures in Contemporary Fiction. Modern Philology 90 (November 1992): 308-12.
Review of Lawrence Schwartz, Creating Faulkner's Reputation: The Politics of Modern Literary Criticism. Novel: A Forum on Fiction 23 (Winter 1990): 218-20.
Review of Donald Pizer, Dos Passos' U. S. A.: A Critical Study. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 89 (April 1990): 266-69.
Review of Peter J. Rabinowitz, Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation. Novel: A Forum on Fiction 23 (Fall 1989): 92-94.
Review of Lennard J. Davis, Resisting Novels: Ideology and Fiction. Ariel 20 (1989): 189-91.
Review of Alan Wald, The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Fall of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. minnesota review n.s. 30/31 (Spring-Fall 1988): 205-208.
Review of Jonathan Arac, Postmodernism and Politics. Comparative Literature Studies 25, 2 (1988): 197-201.
Review of John Frow, Marxism and Literary History. Ariel 18 (July 1987): 86-88.
Review of Gail L. Mortimer, Faulkner's Rhetoric of Loss: A Study in Perception and Meaning. American Literature 57 (March 1985): 161-62.
Review of Lennard J. Davis, Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel. Genre 17, (Winter 1984): 422-25.
Review of Lawrence Langer, Versions of Survival: The Holocaust and the Human Spirit. Comparative Literature 36 (Summer 1984): 282-84.
Review of Tony Bennett, Formalism and Marxism. Modern Philology 80 (May 1983): 443-46.
Review of Robert C. Rosen, John Dos Passos: Politics and the Writer. International Fiction Review 9, 2 (1982): 129-32.
"E. L. Doctorow." In Twentieth-Century Novelists, 3rd Ed. London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's P, 1982. Pp. 182-83.
Letter of response regarding 1980 PMLA article. PMLA 96 (January 1981): 106-07.
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Reprints and Excerpts
Interview with Barbara Foley. Conducted by Rich Hancuff and Noreen O'Connor.
Rpt. in Jeffrey J. Williams, ed., Critics at Work: Interviews 1993-2003. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P. 2004.
“Ten Propositions on the Relationship of Marxism to Working-Class Studies.”
Translated into Chinese and rpt. in Marxist Philosophical Research. Institute of Marxist Philosophy: Wuhan University, PRC. 2003. Pp. 36-38.
“Jean Toomer’s Sparta.”
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Justin Carr. 45: 289-301. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. 2001
“Jean Toomer’s Washington and the Politics of Class: From ‘Blue Veins’ to Seventh-Street Rebels.”
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Justin Carr. 45: 311-25. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. 2001.
“In the Land of Cotton: Economics and Violence in Jean Toomer’s Cane.”
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Justin Carr. 45: 333-44. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. 2001.
"Subversion and Oppositionality in the Academy."
Rpt. in Pedagogy Is Politics: Literary Theory and Critical Teaching. Ed. Maria-Regina Kecht. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1992. Pp. 70-89.
Rpt. in Margins in the Classroom: Teaching Literature. Ed. Kostas Myrsiades and Linda S. Myrsiades. Minneapolis : U of Minnesota P, 1994. Pp. 137-52.
Rpt. in Beyond the Corporate University: Culture and Pedagogy in the New Millennium. Ed. Henry A. Giroux and Kostas Myrsiades. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. Pp. 195-212.
Telling the Truth : The Theory and Practice of Documentary Fiction.
Excerpts of Chapter One, “The Documentary Novel and the Problem of Borders.” In Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Ed. Patrick D. Murphy. Durham: Duke UP. Fall 1996.
"The Politics of Poetics: Ideology and Narrative Form in Dreiser's An American Tragedy and Wright's Native Son."
Rpt. in Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K. A. Appiah. Amistad Literary Series. New York: Amistad. 1993. Pp. 188-199.
"The Politics of Deconstruction."
Rpt. in Rhetoric and Form: Deconstruction at Yale. Ed. Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schliefer. Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma P. 1985. Pp. 113-134.
"From U. S. A. to Ragtime: Notes on the Forms of Historical Consciousness in Modern Fiction."
Rpt. in E. L. Doctorow: Essays and Conversations. Ed. Richard Trenner. Princeton: Ontario Review Critical Series, 1983. Pp. 158-179.
Excerpted in Contemporary Literary Criticism,Vol. 18. Ed. Sharon Gunton. Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1982. Pp. 121-23.
Rpt. in The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House. 1985.
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Work in Progress
Sins of Omission: The Unmaking and Making of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.
Georgia on My Mind: Biography, Politics and History in Jean Toomer's Cane
“Sinclair Lewis, Philip Roth, and the Spectre of American Fascism.” Co-Authored with Gregory Meyerson.
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Presentations/Panel Organizing
“Is Democracy Compatible with Capitalism?” Session Sponsored by the International Endowment for Democracy. Left Forum. March 2006.
“Academic Freedom and the Rise of the Right.” Session Sponsored by Science and Society and Historians Against the War. Left Forum. March 2006.
“Sinclair Lewis, Philip Roth, and the Spectre of American Fascism.” Special Session on “Marxism Now: Beyond Cultural Politics and Back to Class.” MLA Convention. December 2005.
“African Americans, Communism, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Session on “Literature of the 1950s and Its Legacy: Ideology and Ethnicity.” Organized by the Division on Twentieth-Century American Literature. MLA Convention. December 2005.
“Ralph Ellison and the Critique of Political Economy.” URPE (Union for a Radical Political Economy) Summer Conference. Special Session on Literature and Political Economy. August 2005.
“Form and Politics in the Proletarian Novel.” Lecture delivered at Beijing Normal University, June 2005, Beijing China; and at Beijing Languages and Cultures University, Beijing, China. June 2005.
“The Harlem Renaissance Reconsidered.” Lecture delivered at Beijing Languages and Cultures University, Beijing China; and at Chinese Central Normal University, Wuhan, China. June 2005.
“The Radical Right: Liberal Versus Marxist Perspectives.” Conference Paper, Conference on Cultural Criticism and Cultural Studies, Wuhan, China. June 2005.
“The Meaning of ‘Urban’ in Urban Literature.” Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Rutgers-Newark Conference on Urban Literature.” April 2005.
Chair and Panel Organizer, “Fascism: Then and Now.” Session sponsored by Science and Society. Left Forum. April 2005.
Chair and Panel Organizer, “Racism and the Politics of Oil.” Session sponsored by the Alliance of Radical Academic and Intellectual Organizations. Left Forum. April 2005.
Chair and Panel Organizer, “American Fascism?” Educators to Stop the War: East Coast Regional Conference. March 2005.
“Theories of Fascism and the Literary Left in the 1930s.” Special Session sponsored by the MLA Radical Caucus on “Fascism and Literature.” MLA Convention. December 2004.
“Race, Class and Nation: The Left and the ‘Negro Question,’ 1920-1940.” Presentation to Annual Editorial Board Meeting of Science and Society, November 2004.
“Politics and Form in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Invited Lecture at North Carolina A & T University. October 2004.
“Race, Nation, and the Origins of the Harlem Renaissance.” Brecht Forum. April 2004.
“Imperialism versus Empire.” Conference on America and Empire. Departments of American Studies and Cultural Studies, Indiana University. April 2004.
“The Drafts of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Session on “Left of the Color Line.” MELUS, San Antonio, TX. March 2004.
“The University and/in the Class War.” Panel on “The University in a Time of War.” Sponsored by the Division on Sociological Approaches to Literature. MLA Convention, San Diego. December 2003.
Respondent, Session on China and Globalization, Fifth Conference on Re-Thinking Marxism. Amherst, MA. November 2003.
“Organizing in the Academy Across Disciplinary Lines.” Session Sponsored by the Alliance of Radical Academic and Intellectual Organizations, Fifth Conference on Re-Thinking Marxism. Amherst, MA. November 2003.
“The Continuing Relevance of Proletarian Literature in the 21st Century.” Conference on Marxism and the Twenty-First Century. University of Havana, Havana, Cuba. May 2003.
"Alain Locke, the Left, and the Making of The New Negro." Center for Working-Class Studies, Youngstown, Ohio. May 2003; Marxist Literary Group Summer Institute. Davis, CA. June 2003.
“The Radical Origins of the Harlem Renaissance.” Annual Paumanok Lecture, LIU-Brooklyn Campus. April 2003.
“A Critique of Pure Tolerance.” Panel on “Promoting Diversity and Tolerance on College Campuses after 9/11/01: Theory and Practice.” Sponsored by the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity and Tolerance. MLA Convention. December 2002.
"Teaching about the Politics of Oil." MLA Radical Caucus Conference on "Teaching in a Time of 'Endless War'." CUNY Graduate Center. November 2002.
Panelist, "Current Developments in Marxist Feminism: A Roundtable." Panel Sponsored by Science and Society. Socialist Scholars Conference. April 2002.
"Class, Visible and Invisible." Radical Caucus Session on "Class: Unwelcome Guest in Bourgeois Literature." MLA Convention. New York City. December 2001.
"War, Austerity and the Politics of Academic Organizing." Symposium on Academic Labor Activism. North Carolina State University. October 2001.
"Jean Toomer and Modernism." Special Exhibition on Graphics for Jean Toomer's Cane. Temple University. October 2001.
"Worker-Student Alliance, Then and Now." Brecht Forum. October 2001.
"U. S. Working-Class Studies in International Perspective." International Conference on "Marxism 2001." Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences. Kunming, China. June 2001.
"Ten Propositions on the Relation of Marxism to Working-Class Studies." Biennial Conference on Working-Class Studies. Youngstown State University. May 2001.
"It's Happening: Antiracist Activism in the Academy and the Rank-and-File Women's Movement." Biennial Conference on Working-Class Studies. Youngstown State University. May 2001.
"Race and Place in the Making of the New Negro: Culturalism and the Harlem Renaissance." Invited Lecture, Department of English, University of California at Berkeley. March 2001.
"The New Negro and the Politics of Culturalism." Critical Theory Program, University of California at Davis. March 2001.
"Making Communism Invisible: The Drafts of Invisible Man." Re-Thinking Marxism Conference. University of Massachusetts at Amherst. September 2000.
Panelist and Panel Organizer, "Marxist Pedagogy." Marxist Literary Group Summer Institute. June 2000.
"Defetishizing the 'Economic' in Marx's 'Wage-Labor and Capital.'" Marxist Literary Group Summer Institute. June 2000.
"The Anti-Communistization of Invisible Man." Marxist Theory Colloquium. New York University. April 2000.
Keynote Address, "Red Black Writers, the Project of Marxist Criticism, and the Praxis of the Marxist Scholar." Graduate Student Conference, "The Future of Those Who Make It: Revolutionary Speculations." University of Florida. March 2000.
"The New Negro and the Left." Division on Sociological Approaches to Literature Session on "Nation and Class." MLA Convention. December 1999.
"Ralph Ellison's Proletarian Short Fiction." Center for Working-Class Studies Biennial Conference. Youngstown State University. June 1999.
"The Drafts of Invisible Man." Marxist Literary Group. University of Illinois at Chicago. June 1999.
"Jean Toomer, History, and Modernism." Graduate Student Colloquium. George Washington University. Spring 1999.
"Jean Toomer and the Left." Brecht Forum. April 1999.
Panel Organizer, Division on Sociological Approaches to Literature Session on "Representing the Left." MLA Convention. December 1998.
"Ralph Ellison and the Problem of Audience." Special Session on "Radicalism and the Middle-Class Writer." MLA Convention. December 1998.
"Postmodernism, the Left, and African-American Literature." SUNY-Buffalo, Spring 1998.
"Jean Toomer, History, and the New Negro." Colloquium, Rutgers-Newark, March 1998.
"Jean Toomer, 'Trauma,' and History." Special Session on "Race and Trauma." MLA Convention. December 1997.
"Roads Taken and Not Taken: Anticommunism, Post-Marxism, and African-American Literature." Special Session on "The Politics of Post-Marxism." MLA Convention. December 1997.
"Jean Toomer and Georgia." "A New Tradition: The Harlem Renaissance and Its Heritage: A Conference and Celebration." Paine College, Augusta, Georgia. October 1997.
"Toeing the Line: Ralph Ellison's Early Journalism and Communist Party Politics." Conference on Working Class Studies and the Future of Work. Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio. June 1997.
Panelist, Teach-In on "The Future of Academic Work." Rutgers-New Brunswick. February 1997.
Chair and Panel Organizer, "The Reemergence of the Right in the Academy." Session Sponsored by the Division on Sociological Approaches to Literature. MLA Convention. December 1996.
"Ralph Ellison, Anticommunism, and the Discourse of the Cold War." Rethinking Marxism Conference. December 1996. Also delivered at the Brecht School. June 1997.
"Ralph Ellison, the Federal Writers Project, and the New Masses." Special Session on "The Representation of the Masses, 1900-1950." Midwest Modern Language Association. November 1996.
Panel Organizer and Panelist, "Marxism, Globality and Proletarian Internationalism." Marxist Literary Group. June 1996.
"The Rhetoric of Anti-Communism in Invisible Man." Radical Caucus Session, "Proletarian Literature Revisited." MLA Convention. December 1995. Also delivered at the University of Arkansas. March 1996. Revised version delivered at the Conference on "The Cold War and American Culture." University of Toledo. April 1996.
"Marxism and the Dialectic of Race and Class." Seminar, University of Arkansas. March 1996.
"How Oppositional Is Oppositional Criticism?" Keynote Address, Conference on "Oppositional Criticism." Bowling Green State University. March 1996.
Chair and Panel Organizer, "The Difference Class Makes." Session sponsored by the Division of Sociological Approaches to Literature. MLA Convention. December 1995.
"Jean Toomer and the Left." Conference, "Working-Class Lives / Working-Class Studies." Youngstown State U. June 1995.
Panel Co-leader, "Organizing in the Diaspora." Symposium, "Old Themes / New Directions: Studying the Third World in the Nineties." Rutgers-Newark. March 1995.
"Jean Toomer's Seventh Street and Literary Proletarianism." Special Session, "International Proletarian Literature." MLA Convention. December 1994.
"Jean Toomer, Economics, and the Politics of Modernism." Society for Critical Exchange. October 1994.
"The Women of Cane: From Myth to History." Third Southern Conference on Women's History. Southern Association for Women Historians. June 1994.
"The Retreat from Proletarianism: Renarrating the 1930s in the 1940s and 1950s." Symposium, "The Politics of Culture in the Cold War Era." U of Pennsylvania. March 1994. Also delivered at the Essex County Ethical Culture Society. February 1995. Also delivered as Cultural Studies Discussion Group / English Department Colloquium. Rutgers University. April 1995.
"The Repression of History in Jean Toomer's Cane." Special Session, "Honoring Picket Lines: The Politics of Labor and Leftism in New Historicist Practice." MLA Convention. December 1993.
"Irony and History in Melville's 'Bartleby.'" International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. April 1993.
Panel Organizer, Special Session, "Black Writers and Left Politics." MLA Convention. December 1992.
"Gender and Class in Women's Proletarian Fiction." Session, "Women Writers of the 1930s and 1940s." Institute for Research on Women, New Brunswick, NJ. May 1992.
"Teaching Multiculturalism." Workshop for Integration Project, Rutgers-Newark. April 1992.
"Socialism and Marxist Theory." SUNY-Buffalo Graduate Student Conference on Marxism. March 1992.
"Tradition and Experiment in American Proleterian Fiction." Marxist Literary Group Session, "Culture of the 1930s." MLA Convention. December 1991.
"The Politics of Multiculturalism." New Jersey Project Conference. October 1991.
"American Literary Leftism and the Great Depression." Colloquium, Rutgers-Newark Honors Program. October 1991.
"Feminism and Class in American Proletarian Fiction." English Department, Rutgers-New Brunswick. April 1991.
"Class." Division of Criticism Session, "After Glasnost: Whither Marxist Criticism?" MLA Convention. December 1990.
"Revising the American Literature Syllabus." Institute for Research on Women, New Brunswick, NJ. May 1990.
"Discourses of Race and Class: Radical Politics and Levels of Narrative in Depression-Era Proletarian Fiction." International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. April 1990.
"The CP and the City: Proletarian and Folk Ideology in William Attaway and Richard Wright." Division on Afro-American Literature. Midwest MLA. November 1989.
"Women and the Left in the 1930s: Some Implications for Marxist and Feminist Theory." Center for Twentieth-Century Studies, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. April 1989.
"Rereading the 1930s: Politics, History, Theory." Colloquium, English Department, Rutgers-Newark. March 1989.
"Marxist Critics of the 1930s and Bourgeois Aesthetic Theory." Midwest MLA. November 1988.
"The Politics of Realism in Proletarian Fiction." Organizer, Special Session, "The Politics of Realism in American Literature." International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. April 1988.
"Resources at the Newberry Library for the Study of Radical Writers in the Early Twentieth Century." Colloquium, Newberry Library. February 1988.
"The Proletarian Novel: Problems of Historical Context and Political/Aesthetic Evaluation." Seminar, Newberry Library. January 1988.
"Marxism in the Poststructuralist Moment: Notes on the Problem of Revising Marx." Conference, "Changing Marx." U of Pennsylvania. December 1987.
"Subversion and Oppositionality in the Academy." Special Session, "Theory/Pedagogy/Politics." MLA Convention. December 1986.
Session Organizer, "The Decanonization of American Literature." Midwest MLA Convention. November 1986.
"Textual 'Subversion' and Political Oppositionality." Symposium, "Criticism and Pedagogy in the Waste Land," Hamilton College. October 1986.
Panelist, "Politics and the Academy." Marxist Literary Group Summer Institute. June 1986.
"The Politics of Poetics: Ideology and Narrative Form in Dreiser's An American Tragedy and Wright's Native Son." International Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, April 1986. Also delivered at City College, CUNY. April 1986. Also delivered at Conference, "The Arts and Disciplines of Literary Study," SUNY--Stony Brook. March 1987.
"The Chicago School and Marxism." Special Session, "The Chicago School of Literary Criticism." MLA Convention. December 1985.
"Poststructuralism: Politics, Theory and Practice." Colloquium, Northwestern U. March 1985.
Respondent to Lawrence Lipking, "Aristotle's Sister: Feminism and Literary History." Colloquium, Northwestern U. January 1985.
"The Politics of Deconstruction." Special Session, "Contemporary Narrative Theory and the Yale Critics." MLA Convention. December 1984.
Chairperson and organizer, Special Session, "The Politics of Melville Criticism." MLA Convention. December 1984.
"The Pseudopolitics of Epistemological Rupture." Special Session, "Indiscre(e)tions: The Interpenetration of Fictional and Nonfictional Genres." MLA Convention. December 1983.
Respondent to Michael Kearns, "Phantoms of Mind: Melville's Criticism of Transcendental Psychology." Division on American Literature before 1870. Midwest MLA Convention. November 1983.
Panelist, "Myths and Realities of Ph.D. Employment: A Workshop on Academic and Non-Academic Careers." U of Chicago. October 1983.
Seminar, "The Contemporary Nonfiction Novel and the New Journalism." Northwestern U. November 1983.
Respondent to John Beverly, "Gongora, Gongorism, and the Production of Solitude." Northwestern U. March 1981.
Respondent to Mark Poster, "Foucault, Marx, and History." Northwestern U. April 1981.
"Ideology in Contemporary Documentary Narrative." Special Session, "Postmodern American Fiction and Nonfiction: Correspondences and Differences." MLA Convention. December 1980.
"Four American Novelists and the Problem of Influence." Colloquium, English Department, U of Wisconsin-Madison. Feburary 1978.
"Feminism and Tragedy in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth." Radio Lecture, U of Wisconsin-Extension. October 1977.
"Racism and Sexism in American Literature: The Ideological Interlock." Symposium, "Racism, Sexism and Culture." U of Wisconsin-Extension. June 1977.
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Grants and Awards
FASP Leave, Rutgers University. Spring 2005.
Scholar-Activist of the year. Golden Key Society. Rutgers University. 2004.
Rutgers Research Council. 2001-02. ($1500).
Teacher of the Year Award, University College, Rutgers University. 2000.
Rutgers Research Council. 1998-99. ($800).
FASP Leave, Rutgers University. Fall 1998.
National Endowment for the Humanities. 1996-97. ($30,000).
Rutgers Research Council. 1995-96. $850.
The Graduate School, Rutgers University. 1993-94. $300.
The Graduate School, Rutgers University. 1990-91. $1000.
FASP Leave, Rutgers University. Fall 1990.
National Endowment for the Humanities/Newberry Library Fellowship. 1987-88 ($20,000).
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. 1987-88 (declined to accept NEH fellowship).
Office of Research and Special Projects Grant, Northwestern University. 1981-82 ($700 for work-study student).
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship. 1980 ($2500).
American Council of Learned Societies Semester Fellowship. Spring 1980 ($2500).
University of Wisconsin Graduate School Research Grants. Summers 1978 and 1979 ($2000 apiece).
Special Humanities Fellowship, University of Chicago. 1969-72 ($3000/year plus tuition).
Isabel Briggs Traveling Fellowship, Radcliffe College. 1969(declined).
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Teaching
Undergraduate Courses Taught at Rutgers
English 223-224: Survey of American Literature, I & II.
English 363-364: The Novel in America, I & II.
English 395-96: African-American Literature, I & II.
English 351-2: Studies in American Authors, I & II.
English 348-49: Minorities in American Literature, I & II.
English 368 and 369: Class in American Literature, I and II. Honors Course taught in conjunction with History component.
English 369: Special Topics in American Literature: The Harlem Renaissance.
English 369. Special Topics in American Literature: The Radical Tradition in American Literature.
English 369. The Radical Tradition in American Literature and Literary Study. Advanced Methods Course.
English 368: Ralph Ellison. Advanced Methods Course.
Graduate Courses Taught at Rutgers
English 561: Proletarian Literature.
English 508: Marxist Literary Theory.
English 558: Urban Literature.
English 521: The American 1920s.
English 521: The Harlem Renaissance.
English 521: The American 1930s.
English 521: The American Novel Between the Wars
Independent Studies Conducted at Rutgers
Proletarian Writers.
African American Writers and the Left
The Harlem Renaissance.
Feminism and Marxism in 1930s U. S. Literature.
Marxist Theory (Graduate and Undergraduate levels)
Women and the Marxist Tradition
M.A. and Undergraduate Thesis Supervision at Rutgers, 1995-2005
“The Black Feminist Bildungsroman” (Undergraduate Honors Thesis).
“Crime and Punishment in American Literature” (Undergraduate Honors Thesis).
"Radical Black Writers of the 1930s" (Undergraduate Honors Thesis).
"Motherhood in Black Women's Literature" (MA Thesis).
"Leftist Female Journalists of the 1930s" (MA Thesis).
"The Politics of John Steinbeck" (M. A. Thesis).
Ph.D. Thesis Supervision, 1995-2005
Marcial Gonzalez, "The Postmodern Turn in Chicano Studies." Stanford University, 1999
Sondra H Guttman, "The Representation of Rape in Modernist Literature." Rutgers University, New Brunswick. 2001.
Charles Cunningham, “Middle-Class Voyeurism and Writing about the ‘Poor’ in Depression-Era America.” Carnegie Mellon University (2001).
Rich Hancuff, “The New Masses and the Politics of Race.” George Washington University (current).
Kimberly De Fazio, “Materialist Representations of the City in Contemporary Culture.” State University of New York at Stony Brook (current).
Jennifer Cotter, “Feminist Theory and Cultural Critique: Class, Globalization, and Social Differences.” University of Pittsburgh (current).
Curriculum Development at Rutgers
Course release (Spring 1989) for participation in DHE grant for integration of gender, race and class into the curriculum. Result: revision of English 223-224, 363-364.
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Service
Professional Positions
Delegate, MLA Delegate Assembly. 2005-2007, 1996-99, 1982-85.
Member, Editorial Board and Manuscript Review Committee, Science and Society. 1997-present.
Member, Steering Committee, Alliance of Radical Academic and Intellectual Organizations. Fall 2003-present.
Member, Editorial Collective, Workplace: The E-Journal of the MLA Graduate Student Caucus. 1999-present.
Member, Editorial Collective, Cultural Logic, 2000-present
Member, Steering Committee, MLA Radical Caucus. 1994-present.
Member, Editorial Board, minnesota review. 1992-present.
Member, Division on Sociological Approaches to Literature. MLA. 1994-1999. President, 1999.
Editorial Board, Ariel: A Journal of International English Literature. 1987-1993.
President, American Literature Before 1870 Section. Midwest MLA. 1985-86.
Secretary, American Literature Before 1870 Section. Midwest MLA. 1984-85.
Current Membership in Professional Organizations
American Studies Association
MELUS
Modern Language Association
MLA Radical Caucus
American Association of University Professors
Marxist Literary Group
Historians of American Communism
Center for Working-Class Studies
Manuscript Reader
MELUS
College English
M/MLA Journal
PMLA
American Quarterly
Mosaic
American Literary History
Modern Fiction Studies
Minnesota review
American Educational Research Journal
Science and Society
Journal of Narrative Theory
Journal of American Folklore
Duke UP
U of Minnesota P
U of Missouri P
U of Illinois P
U of Iowa P
U of North Carolina P
U of Michigan P
UP of Mississippi
Princeton UP
Cambridge UP
Ohio State UP
Harvard UP
Modern Language Association
Columbia UP
SUNY-Buffalo P
Grant Evaluator
The Newberry Library
The National Endowment for the Humanities
American Council of Learned Societies
Evaluator for Tenure and Promotion
University of Cincinnati
Colorado State University
Wesleyan U
CUNY-John Jay College (2)
CUNY-Baruch College
CUNY-City College
SUNY-Albany (3)
SUNY-Buffalo (2)
Pennsylvania State U (2)
U of California-Santa Barbara
U of Texas-San Antonio
U of Massachusetts-Boston
University of Alabama
University Service at Rutgers
Member, FAS-N A&P Committee. 2005-2006.
Member, Teaching Effectiveness Committee. 2004-2005.
Member, Affirmative Action and Review Committee. 2003-2004.
Member, Teaching Evaluation Committee. Fall 2003-present.
“Organizing at the Grassroots.” Conference on Influencing State Policy. Rutgers University-Newark. April 2003.
Faculty Adviser, Rutgers Acts for Peace and Justice (RAP-J). 2002--present.
Chair, Faculty Student Affairs Committee, 1999-2002.
AAUP Grievance Co-Counsel and Counsel. 1991, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003.
FAS-N A & P Committees. 1990, 2000.
Search Committee, Academic Foundations. 1997-98.
English Department Graduate Director. 1991-1997.
FAS-N Faculty Library Committee. 1993-1994; Chair 1994-1996.
Board, Institute for Research on Women. 1994-1995.
Member, English Department Events Committee. 1994-95.
Member, Dean's Committee on University College-Newark. 1994-96.
Member, Provost's EO Committee. 1994-95.
Panelist, "What Is Feminism?" Rutgers-Newark, Spring 2000.
Panelist, "What's Wrong with Welfare 'Reform.'" School of Social Work, Rutgers-Newark. Fall 1999.
NCAS Honors Colloquium, "Welfare 'Reform' and/in Newark." Fall 1999.
Speaker, "Workfare and the Reemergence of Slave Labor." Rutgers-Newark NOW Forum on Welfare Repeal. Fall 1996.
Panel Organizer and Speaker, "Welfare 'Reform' and the Criminalization of Motherhood." Teach-In Against the Contract on America. Rutgers-Newark. March 1995.
Co-Organizer of Symposium, "Old Themes / New Directions: Studying the Third World in the Nineties." Rutgers-Newark. Spring 1995.
Faculty Advisor, Rutgers-Newark NOW. 1995-1998.
Graduate School Executive Committee. 1993-1996.
Participant and Co-Organizer, Faculty Cultural Studies Discussion Group. 1992-1995.
AAUP Grievance Hearing Pool. 1992-1994.
Faculty Guest Columnist, Rutgers Observer. 1993, 1994, 1995.
Faculty Supervisor in English Education, Rutgers-Newark. 1993-present.
Women's Studies Council. 1988-present.
Colloquium, Women's Studies Program. "Welfare 'Reform' and the Contract on America." Spring 1995.
Panelist, "The AAUW Report and Women at Rutgers-Newark." Colloquium, Women's Studies Program. Spring 1993.
Provost's Middle States Progress Report Commission. 1992-93.
Faculty MC, Senior Awards Night. May 1992.
Graduate School Admissions and Financial Aid Committee. 1991-94.
Faculty Fellow, Woodward Hall. Leadership of half-dozen student workshops on culture and politics. 1991-93.
NCAS Admissions Committee. 1990--1993.
English Department Curriculum and Budget Committee. 1990-1996.
NCAS Faculty/Student Affairs Committee. 1989-92.
Panelist, "The Rhetoric and Meaning of the Gulf War." ASG Teach-In. February 1991.
Faculty Advisor, Advocates for Choice. 1990-92.
English Department Library Committee. 1988-89, 1994-95.
Rutgers University Speakers Bureau. 1990-present. Presentations on "Literature and Social
Values" at Middletown High School (1991) and North Arlington High School (1993, 1995).
Faculty Keynote Speaker, Freshman Recruitment Night. Spring 1990.
Faculty Adviser, Advocates for Choice. 1989-92.
Graduate School Membership Committee. 1990-91.
Phi Beta Kappa Secretary. 1988-90.
Community Service
Guest Speaker, “Anti-Racism, Class Struggle, and Radical Culture in the US: 1919-1932.” Department of History. Bloomfield High School. April 2005
Member, Combatting Racism Task Force, NOW-NJ. 1989-present; Chair 1994-1996, 2000-present.
Founding Member and Steering Committee Member, Women of Color and Allies, Essex County Chapter, NOW-NJ. 1999-present.
Member, NOW-NJ State Board. 1990-1996, 2000-01.
Member, Essex County NOW. 1989-1995.
Guest Speaker, “The Politics of Oil.” Teach-In on the Coming War. Ramapo College. November 2002.
Co-Organizer, NOW-NJ State Conference, "The Many Faces of Violence and Racism." Rutgers University-Newark. October 2000.
Guest Speaker, "The Function of the University," Teach-In Against Racism, Ramapo College. April 1999.
Co-Organizer, NOW-NJ Women's Summit on Overcoming Racism." Rutgers-Newark. June 1998.
Organizer and Panelist, "Is Workfare Slave Labor?" NOW National Conference. Memphis, TN June 1997.
Panel Organizer, "Women, Work, and Welfare." Institute for Research on Women. New
Brunswick, NJ. May 1996.
Panelist, "Having an Impact on Government and Going Beyond the Vote." R. E. D. (Rutgers-Essex Drew) Conference on "Making the Personal Political." Essex County College. March1996.
Guest Lecturer, "Women and Politics in the Grim New Days: Problems and Prospects."
Celebration of Women's History Month. AT&T, Holmdel, NJ. March 1996.
Guest Lecturer, "The Four Big 'Isms' of the 20th Century."University High School Academic Decathlon. November 1995.
Panelist, "Voting Rights, Redistricting, and Grassroots Opposition to Inequity." Conference on Race and Inequity, Howard University, Washington, DC. October 1995.
Chair, Affirmative Action/Membership Committee, NOW-NJ. 1990-1994.
Steering Committee, Committee to Elect Saundra Addison-Simpson, Candidate for Member-at-Large, Newark City Council. Spring 994.
Organizer and Panelist, "Racism Can Be Bad for Your Health."NOW-NJ State Conference.
October 1994.
Organizer, "The Politics of Welfare 'Reform.'" Institute for Research on Women, New Brunswick, NJ. May 1994.
Organizer, "Combatting Racism in the Women's Movement." Midatlantic Regional NOW
Conference. May 1994.
Organizer, "Racism and Welfare 'Reform.'" NOW-NJ State Conference. November 1993.
Co-Organizer, "Racism in Education: A Scenario." NOW-NJ State Conference. November
1991.
Member, Tuxedo Parkway Block Association (Newark). 1994-1999.
Member, University High School (Newark) PTSO. 1989-1997.
Member and Activist, Ivy Hill Neighborhood Association (Newark). 1988-91.
Organizer and Host, "Essex County NOW and Women's Issues." Local Public Access Cable TV
Program. 1992-1998.
Program Topics:
"Violence Against Women," I and II.
"Directions for Community Action in Newark."
"1992: The Year of the Woman?"
"The Politics of Welfare 'Reform,'" I and II.
"Women and AIDS."
"Economic Issues Facing Women in Newark."
"The AAUW Report: Views on Sexism in Education from the City and the Suburbs."
"School Vouchers and Racism in Education."
"Positive Alternatives at Hill Manor," I and II.
"Women and the Contract on America."
"The Resurgence of Racism."
"Police Brutality as a Women's Issue."
"Organizing NOW at Rutgers-Newark."
"The Attack on Affirmative Action."
"Women and the Fight for Jobs."
"Welfare, Prisons, and the New Slavery," I and II.
"The Welfare Scapegoat."
"How Men Are Hurt By Sexism."
"B. J. Moore, Poet of East Orange."
"The New Slavery."
"Police Violence and Women."
"The Promise Keepers."
"Resistance to Police Violence."
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