Academic Profile

Academic specializations: Literary Boston; American Humor Since 1980; American Literature: 1790-1860; Gothic Fiction.

Courses

• EN141 - American Literary History I
• EN404 - Literary Boston 1790-1860
• EN412 - Writing Workshop: Creative Nonfiction
• EN501 - Boston: History, Literature and Culture I
  

Publications (selected)

• Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict, The University of Chicago Press, 2006.
• Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature, State University of New York Press, 1989.
• Curator, Forgotten Chapters of Boston's Literary History, An exhibition at the Boston Public Library and Massachusetts Historical Society, March 28-July 30, 2012.
  
• Curator, The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston, Boston Public Library, December 17, 2009-March 31, 2010.
• “Longfellow’s Serenity and Poe’s Prediction: An Antebellum Turning Point,” New England Quarterly 86:1 (March 2012): 144-158.
• “The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston,” in Seth C. Bruggeman, Ed., Born in the U.S.A.: Birth and Commemoration in American Public Memory, University of Massachusetts Press, Public History in Historical Perspective Series, 2012. (co-authored)
• "The Great, the Good, and the Deliciously Awful: Why Boston Needs a Literary Trail," Boston Globe, April 1, 2012, K,12.
• “What’s So Funny about a Dead Terrorist? Toward an Ethics of Humor for the Digital Age,” in A Decade of Dark Humor: Humor, Irony, and Post-9/11 Politics, Ted Gournelos and Viveca Greene, Eds. University of Mississippi Press, 2011.
• "Quoth the Detective: Edgar Allan Poe’s Case against the Boston Literati," Boston Globe, March 6, 2011.
• WGBH Radio interview on Poe and Boston, November 25, 2011.
• Great Poe Debate, Free Library of Philadelphia, January 13, 2009 [Podcast]
• Editor, “The Muhammad Cartoons and Humor Research” in HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 21-1 (2008): 1-46.
• "(Mis)reading Borat: The Risks of Irony in the Digital Age, Electronic Journal of Communication 18:2, 3, & 4 (2008).
• "Stephen Colbert, Character and Candidate" (op-ed), Providence Journal, October 31, 2007.
• "Beyond Empathy: Sarah Silverman and the Limits of Comedy," Tikkun, September-October, 2007, 88-89.
• "Painful Laughter: The Collapse of Humor in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories," reprinted in Charles L. P. Silet, ed., The Films of Woody Allen: Critical Essays, Scarecrow Press, 2006.
• "And divided we laugh: the year in humor," Boston Globe, December 29, 2006.
• "Meanwhile: Laughing all the way to the war," International Herald Tribune, December 8, 2006.
• "Funny Thing About Elections," Philadelphia Inquirer, September 8, 2006.
• "A 'Wild' and 'Homely' Narrative: Resisting Argument in 'The Black Cat'" Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, 35 (2002):1-14.
• "Hamlet: A Mature Reading," Washington Post, February 26, 1997.
• "The Sweet Cycle: From Blossom to Berry to Jam," New York Times, September 23, 1992.
• "Disaster as a Laughing Matter," Chicago Tribune, March 26, 1986.