Faculty Profiles
James D Bloom Professor, English and American Studies |  |
Education
- Ph.D., Rutgers University
- M.A., University of California, Santa Cruz
- B.A., Bennington College
Teaching Interests
In my classes we learn how to use language, in writing and in conversation, by examining how accomplished writers have used language to understand, explore, question and depict realities, both familiar and unfamiliar. My teaching repertory includes courses in modern and contemporary writing, ethnicity and identity, political narrative and rhetoric, and popular culture and mass media. My primary goals as a teacher include:
- encouraging curiosity
- helping students become more skilled and passionate inquirers
- enabling students to write informatively and persuasively.
Research, Scholarship or Creative/Artistic Interests
All my teaching is informed by my work as a scholar, which includes seven books: Roth’s Wars: A Career in Conflict (2022), Reading the Male Gaze in Literature and Culture (2017), Hollywood Intellect (2009), Gravity Fails: The Comic Jewish Shaping of Modern America (2003), The Literary Bent: In Search of High Art in Contemporary American Writing (1997), Left Letters: The Culture Wars of Mike Gold and Joseph Freeman (1992) and The Stock of Available Reality: R.P Blackmur and John Berryman (1984). Since the 1970s, I have also published more than 100 essays and reviews in both scholarly journals and general interest periodicals, such as American Literary History, American Studies, American Quarterly, Contemporary Literature, European Journal of American Culture, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Style, The New York Times Book Review, Philip Roth Studies, The Philadelphia Inquirer, (Allentown) Morning Call, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, and the rock-and-roll monthly, Creem. My teaching and scholarly interests also draw on jobs held before becoming a professor, in publishing at the Viking Press, Macmillan and Time Inc., and at Broadway’s storied Strand bookstore.
Current research interests: Inquiries into rhetorics of institutions & representations of intellectual aspiration.
