Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
Education
Ph.D., Temple University, English, 1966. Dissertation: “Jane Austen and Sensibility”
M.A., Temple University, English, 1961
B.A., Bob Jones University, 1958. Major: English; Minor: German
Professional Experience
1980-2003 | Professor, English, University of California, Santa Barbara
1972-1980 | Associate Professor, English, University of California, Santa Barbara
1969-1972 | Assistant Professor, English, University of California, Santa Barbara
1966-1969 | Assistant Professor, English, Rutgers University, Camden
1962-1966 | Instructor, English, Rutgers University, Camden
1961-1962 | Lecturer, English, Temple University
Awards
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 1989
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 1986
Humanities Institute Fellowship, University of California, 1975
Summer Faculty Fellowship, University of California, 1971
Publications
Books:
Defoe and the Novel, University of California Press, 1975
Swift’s Narrative Satires: Author and Authority, Cornell University Press, 1983
The Boundaries of Fiction: History and the Eighteenth-Century British Novel (Cornell University Press, 1996)
Textbooks:
Medea: Myth and Dramatic Form, ed. with James Sanderson, Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1967
Oedipus: Myth and Dramatic Form, ed. with James Sanderson, Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1967
Articles:
“Pride and Prejudice in Pride and Prejudice,” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 33 (1968), 64-73
“The Function of Parody in Northanger Abbey,” Modern Language Quarterly 30 (1969), 53-63
“Jane Austen and Mansfield Park: A Discrimination of Ironies,” Studies in the Novel 1 (1969), 347-356
“Literary Tradition and ‘The Turn of the Screw’,” Studies in Short Fiction 7 (1970), 634-637
“Language and Character in Defoe’s Roxana,” Essays in Criticism 21 (1971), 227-235
“Defoe and Crusoe,” ELH 38 (1971), 377-396
“H.F.’s Meditations: A Journal of the Plague Year,” PMLA 87 (1972), 417-423
“Gulliver the Preacher,” PMLA 89 (1974), 1024-1032
“‘Admiring Pope no more than is proper’: Sense and Sensibility,” Jane Austen, ed. John Halperin (Cambridge University Press, 1975), 112-122
“Tristram Shandy and Narrative Representation,” The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 28 (1987), 127-147
“Swift’s Scatological Poetry: A Praise of Folly,” Modern Language Quarterly 48 (1987), 124-144 (Printed 1989)
“Extreme Events: Scott’s Novels and Traumatic History,” in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 1997
“The Hero of Sensibility in a Commercial Romance: Scott’s Rob Roy,” in a volume on sensibility, 1999
Reviews:
Daniel Defoe’s Many Voices: A Rhetorical Study of Prose Style and Literary Method, by E. Anthony James, Style 11 (1977), 101-102
Defoe and the Uses of Narrative, by Michael Boardman, Modern Language Review 81 (1986), 446-447
Realism and Consensus in the English Novel, by Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth, Eighteenth-Century Studies 19 (1986), 565-567
The Reluctant Naturalism of Amelia: An Essay on the Modern Reading of Fielding, by Roger Sell, Modern Language Review 82 (1987), 452-453
The Civilized Imagination: A Study of Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott, by Daniel Cottom, Nineteenth-Century Literature 42 (1987), 107-110
Typologies in England, 1650-1820, by Paul J. Korshin, Scriblerian 19 (1987), 201-203
The Elusive Daniel Defoe, by Laura Curtis, and A Being More Intense, by Paula Backscheider, Yearbook of English Studies, 1988, 296-297
Travel Literature and The Evolution of the Novel, by Percy G. Adams, Yearbook of English Studies, 1988, 290-292
God’s Plot and Man’s Stories, by Leopold Damrosch, Jr., Modern Language Quarterly 47 (1986), 321-324 (printed 1988)
Papers Presented
“Historiography and Politics: Scott’s Early Novels,” Modern Language Association, New Orleans, 1988
“The Man of Feeling and the Fragments of History: From Richard Bentley to Walter Scott,” Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Long Beach, 1987
“The Man of Feeling and Editorial Reconstruction,” British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Edinburgh, 1986
“Swift’s Scatological Poems and The Praise of Folly,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Toronto, 1985
“Moral Being and Narrative Representation in Tristram Shandy,” Modern Language Association, Washington, 1984
“Swift: The Hermeneutics of Self,” Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, San Francisco, 1983
Administrative Offices
1999-2001 | Provost, College of Letters and Science, University of California, Santa Barbara
1988- | Dean, Undergraduate Academic Affairs, College of Letters and Science, University of California, Santa Barbara (fellowship leave from Fall 1989 through 1990)
1980-1983 | Chair, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
Courses Regularly Taught
Lower-division undergraduate: Survey of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature
Upper-division undergraduate: English Satire; Eighteenth-Century Fiction; Milton
Graduate: one or two seminars annually, with changing content.
Selected Past University Service
Member, Program Review Panel, 1985-87, an administrative committee that supervises formal reviews of all campus departments. Each department is reviewed every 5-10 years, the review including a self-study, an on-site visit by external reviewers, and a final report by the Program Review Panel.
Member, Committee on Educational Policy and Academic Planning, 1977-78, 1987-88, an Academic Senate committee that reviews all substantial program changes on the campus and makes recommendations about the allocation of academic positions.
Chair, Special Committee to Evaluate English Composition (1976-77), a cross-disciplinary committee charged with evaluating the teaching of writing on the campus and with making recommendations about revisions of program structure.
Chair, Supervisory Committee for the Liberal Studies Program of the College of Letters and Science, 1987-88, an interdisciplinary program in which students propose their own major, based on linked courses from three disciplines.
Member, Steering Committee, Interpretive Studies Colloquia, 1987-, an interdisciplinary study group that arranges a series of two-day conferences with visiting speakers.
Selected Past Department Service
Chair, Department of English Graduate Committee, 1972-74, 1979-80, a committee charged with supervising all aspects of the graduate program.
Chair, Department of English Appointments Committee, 1975-76, a position with responsibility for supervising all departmental searches (3 in this case).
Elected member of the Department of English Executive Committee, 1976-78, 1979-80, 1985-87.
Chair, Undergraduate Committee, 1987-88, a committee charged with supervising all aspects of the departmental undergraduate program.
Biographical Entries
Contemporary Authors
Director of American Scholars
Who’s Who in America, 1990