Associate Professor and Deputy Chair

Greenberg1.

Jonathan Greenberg

Associate Professor and Deputy Chair

Department of English, Montclair State University

Contact information

17 Morningside Avenue

Montclair, NJ 07043

h. 973.783.0269

c. 973.650.6272

Education

2002Ph.D. Princeton University. English and American Literature.

Doctoral Thesis: “Worldliness and Wit: Satire and the Grotesque in the Modernist Novel.” Directors: Maria DiBattista and Michael Wood.

1996M.A.Princeton University, with distinction in General, Special Field Exams.

1990 A.B., Harvard University. Literature, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Professional Experience

2008-pres. Montclair State University. Associate Professor (tenured).Areas of specialization:American andBritish Modernism, 20th-Century Literature,Satire and Comedy, Darwin and Literature,Literary Theory.

2003-08Montclair State University. Assistant Professor.

2002-03Teachers College, Columbia University. Writing Tutor.

1996-99Princeton University. Preceptor, Instructor.

Scholarship

Books and Edited Collections

2011Modernism, Satire, and the Novel. Single-authored monograph. Cambridge University Press.

Through readings of Evelyn Waugh, Stella Gibbons, Nathanael West, Djuna Barnes, Samuel Beckett and others, argues that a satiric “late” phase of modernism denies the authority of emotion to guarantee moral and literary value, and instead fosters sophisticated, detached, even cruel attitudes toward suffering,thus challenging the humanistic inheritance of the novel.

2009Darwin and Literary Studies. Guest editor, special issue, Twentieth-Century Literature 55.4 (Winter).

In a critique of the movement known as literary Darwinism, this issue explores the impact of Darwin’s thinking on 20th-century literature and culture, with focus on a tight cluster of themes: rethinking the timeworn nature/nurture debate; understanding the mutual implication of culture and biology; connecting Darwin with contemporary discourse on the animal, the creaturely, and the biopolitical.

Under contract The Cambridge Introduction to Satire. Single-authored text. Cambridge University Press.

A new introduction to satire that seeks at once to synthesize and to intervene in recent scholarship. Going beyond a traditional focus on the rhetorical strategies of classical and Augustan poets, it addresses satire in a range of forms, media, and time periods, and investigates satire in terms of deconstruction, psychoanalysis, speech act theory, Bourdieuvian sociology and critical analyses of the public sphere.

In progressBrave New World: Contexts and Legacies. Co-edited with Nathan Waddell, U. of Nottingham.

A collection of essays on Aldous Huxley’s foundational dystopian novel that seeks to move critical discussion beyond the Cold War framework in which the work achieved its canonical status. Essays pay attention to neglected “contexts” of the novel’s production including Huxley’s engagement with cinema and race, periodicals and print culture, eugenics and bioethics, and progressive education; “legacies” addressed include issues in feminist science fiction, posthumanist theory, neoliberalism and the welfare state, and the current adolescent vogue for dystopian fiction and film. Contributors include Adrzej Gasiorek, David Bradshaw, Laura Frost, Patrick Parrinder, and Jerome Meckier. Proposal under submission to Palgrave.

Articles and Book Chapters

Under review“The Future of Dystopia: Or, Huxley’s Irrelevance,” under editorial review at Raritan.

2013“Evelyn Waugh, Travel, and the Performing Self,” Modernism and Autobiography, ed. Maria DiBattista and Emily O. Wittmann, Cambridge UP (forthcoming).

2012“Wells, Forster, Firbank, Lewis, Huxley, Compton-Burnett, Green: The Modernist Novel’s Experiments with Narrative (II),” The Cambridge History of the English Novel, ed. Robert Caserioand Clement Hawes, Cambridge UP.

2009“Introduction: Darwin and Literary Studies.” Twentieth-Century Literature 55.4: 423-444.

2009“The Ideology of the Mermaid: Children’s Literature in the Intro Theory Course.” Co-written with Patricia Matthew. Pedagogy 9.2: 217-33.

2007“Why Can’t Biologists Read Poetry?: Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love. Twentieth-Century Literature53.2: 93-124.

2007“Okonkwo and the Storyteller: Meaning and Accident in Achebe and Benjamin.”Contemporary Literature 48.3: 423-450.

2007“Cannibals and Catholics: Reading the Reading of Black Mischief.” ModernistCultures 2.2: 115-137.

2006“Nathanael West and the Mystery of Feeling.” Modern Fiction Studies52.3: 588-612.

2003“‘Was Anyone Hurt?’: The Ends of Satire in A Handful of Dust.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 36.3: 351-73.

1999“‘The Base Indian’: Othello and the Metaphor of the Palimpsest in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh.”Modern Language Studies 29.2: 93-107.

Book Reviews and Occasional Pieces

2012“Occupy Wall Street’s Debt to Melville,” The Atlantic Online, April 30, 2012,

2012On Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt. The Campaign for the American Reader, February, 26, 2012.

2012“The Page 99 Test,” The Campaign for the American Reader, March 19, 2012.

2011Review of Authors out Here: Fitzgerald, West, Parker, and Schulberg in Hollywood by Tom Cerasulo. Invited contribution. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies57.4 (2011): 761-63.

2006Review of The Comic Worlds of Peter Arno, Charles Addams, Saul Steinberg. By Iain Topliss. Modernism/Modernity 13.2 (2006): 401-03.

2006Review of Modernism, Cultural Production, and the British Avant-Garde. By Edward Comentale. Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature 5.2. (2006).

2005Review of Colonial Odysseys: Epic and Empire in the Modernist Novel. By David Adams. Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature 5.1 (2005).

2004Review of Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature. By Joseph Carroll. Novel: A Forum on Fiction 38.1 (2004): 117-20.

Conference Papers and Invited Lectures

2014“The Novel and the Bureaucracy,” Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, Louisville, KY.

2013 “The Satiric Space of the Future,” Plenary Talk for “The Condemned Playground: Aldous Huxley and his Contemporaries,” Oxford, UK.

2013“Yossarian as Writer,” panel on “Satire and Biopolitics,” Special Session, Modern Language Association, Boston.

2012“Futures Near and Far,” Plenary Address at conference on “Brave New World and Its Legacies,” Institute for English Studies, London, October, 2012.

2012 “‘Long Holidays from Their Own Lives’: Peeling back Waugh’s Labels.” Modernist Studies Assn., Las Vegas, October 19, 2012.

2012“Writing, Bureaucracy, and Modernity from Bartleby to Yossarian.” Modernist Manhattan. New York, Inst. of Technolgy. March 2, 2012.

2011“The Near Future in the Thirties.” Modernist Studies Association 13. Buffalo, NY. Panel on Facing the Future at Midcentury.

2011“Late Modernist Language Games: Amis and Compton-Burnett.” Modern Language Association. Los Angeles.

2009“Beckett’s Authoritarian Personalities.” Modernist Studies Assn 11. Montreal.

2009“Midcentury or Late Modernism,” seminar on “Articulating Midcentury Modernism.” Modernist Studies Assn 11. Montreal, 2009.

2007“Biologies of the Avant-Garde.” Seminar Leader. Modernist Studies Assn 9. Long Beach, CA.

2007“Some Perversions of Pastoral.” Modernist Studies Assn 9. Long Beach, CA.

2006“Neo-Darwinism and Poststructuralist Theory.” Society for Literature, Science and the Arts. New York, 2006

2006“Bringing up Bambi.” Children’s Lit. Assn. Manhattan Beach, CA, 2006. (WithPatricia Matthew.)

2006“Twentieth Century Primates.” American Comp. Literature Assn. Princeton, NJ, 2006.

2005“‘Second-Hand Dealings with Life’: Satire and Sophistication in Djuna Barnes.” MSA 7. Chicago, 2005.

2005“Satire, Sentiment, and Political Modernism.” Seminar Participant. MSA 7. Chicago, 2005.

2005“Why Can’t Biologists Read Poetry?” Dactyl Foundation Poetics-Cognitive Sci. Colloquy. New York, 2005.

2005“Death, Meaning and Accident in Achebe and Benjamin.” Media In Transition 4. Cambridge, MA, 2005.

2004“Ian McEwan: The Evolution of Unreliability.” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, 2004.

2004“Witty.” 19th Annual International James Joyce Symposium, Dublin, Ireland, June 2004.

2003“Waugh’s Unsentimental Education.” Modern Language Association, San Diego, 2003.

2002“Satire, Sympathy, Sophistication.” Invited Lecture, New York University, New York, 2002.

2002“Yeats and the Impregnation of History.” Invited Presentation, Wellesley College,2002.

Journals and Presses Refereed

Cambridge University Press

Fordham University Press

PMLA

Novel: A Forum on Fiction

LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory

Eire Ireland

TCL: Twentieth Century Literature

MFS: Modern Fiction Studies

The Space Between

Grants, Awards, Recognitions

2013Choice Reviews, Outstanding Academic Title for Language and Literature

2013Dean’s Recognition Award for Scholarship, Montclair State University

2013Separately Budgeted Research Grant, Montclair State University

2013Global Education Grant, Montclair State University

2012Global Education Grant, Montclair State University.

2011Separately Budgeted Research Grant, Montclair State University.

2007Andrew J. Kappel Prize in Literary Criticism. Awarded annually by TCL: Twentieth Century Literature.

2006Separately Budgeted Research Grant. Montclair State University.

2004Global Education Grant. Montclair State U.Center for Global Education.

1999First Prize, Northeast MLA Graduate Student Paper Prize.

1997-98Mellon Fellowship, Princeton University Center for Human Values.

1997Summer Stipend in the Humanities, Princeton University.

1996Distinction awarded, General and Special Field Examinations.

1994-98Presidential Fellowship, Princeton University.

1994Emmy Award, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

1989Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard University, (early election).

Conference Panels Organized or Chaired

2013Satire and Biopolitics. Modern Language Association, Boston.

2011Modernism at Midcentury. Modern Language Association, Los Angeles.

2009Forms of Desire/Forms of Control. Modernist Studies Association 11. Montreal.

2007Moses and Modernism. Modernist Studies Association 9. Long Beach, CA.

2005Modernism and Ecstasy. Modernist Studies Association 7. Chicago.

2004Neo-Darwinism and Contemporary British Fiction. Special Session at MLA.

2004Ireland, Orientalism, Solidarity. American Conf. on Irish Studies, Princeton, NJ.

2003Waugh at 100: Waugh among the Moderns. Special Session at MLA.

Teaching

Courses Taught: Graduate

Theoretical Approaches to Literature

The Modern Novel (Continental)

Modern American Novel

Modern British Fiction

Irish Literary Revival

Naipaul, Rushdie, Coetzee

Modernism and Laughter

Courses Taught: Undergraduate, Advanced

Comic and Satiric Tradition

20th Century English Novel

Literary Modernism

Postwar British Fiction

Modern British Fiction

Asian, African, and Caribbean Literature in English

Modern European Novel

James Joyce

Irish Renaissance

Courses Taught: Undergraduate, Introductory

English Lit II: 1660-present

World Literature: Voices of Tradition and Challenge

The Art of Poetry

College Writing II

Pursuits of English (Intro to criticism and theory)

Writing in the Major: The Analytic Essay

Masters Theses Directed

2013Dillon Eliasson on post-WWII anti-war satire in Catch-22, MASH, and Dr. Strangelove

2013Tim Coyne on Anita Loos, Djuna Barnes, and Modern American Women Satirists

2013Mary Sullivan Houghtaling on Virginia Woolf (ongoing)

2012Wayan Wiraswastiningrum on Allen Ginsburg and Buddhism

2011Norman DeFillippo, on Joyce, Beckett, and O’Brien

2011Peggy LeRoy, on Max Beerbohm and the New Woman (incomplete)

2009 Alexandra Schultz, on Forster, Woolf, Orwell and Empire

2008Katie Keeran, on Samuel Beckett and Labor

2008Sandy Reyes, on Aldous Huxley’s early satire

2007Curtis Zimmerman, on Evelyn Waugh and journalism

2006Elissa Cording, on gender in Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson

2005Genna Hecht on representation of Pittsburgh in Annie Dillard and Michael Chabon

2004Fred Solinger, on Graham Greene and Catholicism

Independent Studies

2012Ashim Dutta on Postcolonial Joyce

2008 Michael Re, on the representation of the superhero in novels and comics

2005Theresa McMillan, on midcentury U.S. Fiction

2003Fred Solinger, on the role of bureaucrat in the colonial space (Greene, Orwell, Coetzee)

Courses Developed

ENGL 356: Modern British Fiction

ENGL 357: Postwar British Fiction

ENGL 358: Recent British Fiction

ENGL 359: James Joyce

Special Topics for Graduate Program: ENGL 600: Modernism and Laughter; ENLT 602: Naipaul, Rushdie, Coetzee.

Service

Committees Chaired and Leadership Positions

2012-presentEnglish Department Deputy Chair

2012-presentEnglish Department Webmaster

2012-presentChair, English Department Assessment Committee

2009-12English Department Graduate Director

2010-11Chair, English Department Personnel Action Committee

2006-pres.Chair, English Department British Curriculum Subcommittee

2008-09Chair, English Department Personnel Action Committee

2008Co-Chair, CHSS Distinguished Scholar Committee

2007-09English Dept. Visiting Writers Committee (Chair 2008-09)

College and Univeristy – Additional Committees and Service

2013CHSS Distinguished Teacher Selection Committee

2013 “The Dystopic Vision,” Professional Development Seminar run by MSU Institute for the Humanities.

2013Organizer, “Every Love Story is a Ghost Story,” talk by D.T. Max of the New Yorker on David Foster Wallace.

2012English Department Sabbatical Review Committee

2012Goldfarb Scholarship Selection Committee

2011Organizer, “The Dream of Perpetual Motion,” Public Reading, Dexter Palmer, novelist

2011Participant, Five-Year External Review Committee Visit

2011Search Committee, Associate Dean of the Graduate School

2010 Search Committee, Dean of the Graduate School

2007-10Board Member, Institutefor Humanities.

2007-08CHSS Distinguished Scholar Committee.

2007Organizer, “Street Photographs,” Public Lecture, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, Columbia University.

2006-07CHSS Distinguished Scholar Committee.

2006-07CHSS Separately Budgeted Research Committee.

2007“The Comedy of Cruelty,” presentation to high school students and teachers, “Humanities in the Schools Day.”

2007Organizer, “Darwin Loves You,” Public Lecture, George Levine, Rutgers U.

2006Organizer, “The First Verse,” Public Reading, Barry McCrea, Yale U.

English Department – Additional Committees and Service

2012Sabbatical Review Committee

2012 Graduate Program Committee

2012Middle States Assessment Committee

2012-13Personnel Action Committeee (DPAC – reappointment and tenure)

2011-12Search Committee, 17th Century Literature

2011Department Faculty Range Adjustment Committee

2010Committee on Revision of the Major.

2006-09Visiting Writers Committee

2005-06Search Committee, Victorian Literature.

2004-05Search Committee, ContemporaryIrish Literature.

2005Elections Committee.

2004-Pursuits of English Steering Committee

2004- Adjunct observation

2004- Judge, Undergraduate Awards Night

Professional Organizations

Modern Language Association

Modernist Studies Association

International James Joyce Society

Writers Guild of America, East

Phi Beta Kappa

NYC Modernism Reading Group

References

Maria DiBattista, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University.

Doug Mao, Department Chair, Professor of English, The Johns Hopkins University.

Michael Wood, Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Comparative Literature (Emeritus),

Princeton University.

Robert Caserio, Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University,

Lucy McDiarmid, Frazee-Baldassarre Professor of English, Montclair State University,

Ray Ryan, Acquisitions Editor, Cambridge University Press,

Lee Zimmerman, Editor, Twentieth Century Literature and Associate Professor, English, Hofstra University,