Mark Edmundson

(1984)
University Professor
Romantic Poetry, Literary Theory

Degrees

Ph.D. Yale, 1985
B.A. Bennington, 1974

Books

  • Kings of Rock and Roll (forthcoming, HarperCollins, Fall 2009)
  • The Death of Sigmund Freud: Fascism, Psycho-analysis and the Rise of Fundamentalism, Bloomsbury Press, 2007.
  • Why Read?, Bloomsbury Press, 2004.
  • Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference, Random House, 2002.
  • Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sado-Masochism, and the Culture of Gothic, Harvard U P, 1997.
  • Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida: A Defence of Poetry, Cambridge U P, 1995, Japanese Translation, 1999; Chinese, 2000; Korean, 2001.
  • Editor, Wild Orchids and Trotsky / Messages from American Universities, Penguin, 1993.
  • Towards Reading Freud: Self-Creation in Milton, Wordsworth, Emerson and Sigmund Freud, Princeton U P, 1990.

Articles

  • “Notes on the Mono-Culture”: Massachusetts Review
    (forthcoming)
  • “Rap’s Reason”: The Common Review (forthcoming).
  • “On Bores”: The American Scholar (forthcoming).
  • “Dwelling in Possibility”: The Chronicle of Higher Education (cover story), March 21, 2008.
  • “One Life” (short story) The Oxford American, March 2008.
  • “Alone at the Movies”: The American Scholar, Winter, 2008.
  • “Who’s Your Daddy?”  Editorial (on Freud):  The New York Times, September 23, 2007.
  • “Freud and Anna”: The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 21, 2007.
  • “Defender of the Faith?”  (on Freud and Moses) New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 9, 2007.
  • “Fadeaway Jumper” in The American Scholar, Winter 2006
  • “The Zen Ten,” in University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center Bulletin, Fall, 2005.
  • “Freud and the Fundamentalist Urge,” The New York Times Magazine, April 30, 2006.
  • “Fade-Away Jumper,” The American Scholar, Winter 2006.
  • “Humanities Past, Present and Future,” New Literary History, Winter 2005.
  • “Freud (and Shakespeare) in Love,” Raritan, Summer 2004.
  • “The Risk of Reading,” The New York Times Magazine, August 1, 2004.
  • Introduction to Beyond the Pleasure Principle by Sigmund Freud, ed. Adam Phillips, (Penguin, 2004).
  • “How Teachers Can Stop Cheaters,” New York Times, Op-Ed, September 9, 2003.
  • "Teaching Truths,” Raritan, Fall 2003.
  • "Soul Crafting," The New York Times Magazine, August 18, 2002.
  • "Game Time," The Yale Review, Spring, 2002.
  • "A Word to the New Humanities Professor," Hedgehog Review, Spring, 2001.
  • "Playing the Fool in Shakespeare," New York Times Book Review, April 2, 2000.
  • "Romantic Jesus," New York Times Book Review, December 26, 1999.
  • "Crashing the Academy," The New York Times Magazine, April 4, 1999.
  • "My First Intellectual," Lingua Franca, March, 1999.
  • "Art and Imperium," The Nation, June 29, 1998.
  • "Tangled Up in Truth" (On Bob Dylan), Civilization, Oct.- Nov. 1997.
  • "The Uses of a Liberal Arts Education." Harper's Magazine, September, 1997.
  • "Save Sigmund Freud." The New York Times Magazine, July 13, 1997.
  • "Las Vegas Rising." Civilization, July-Aug., 1996.
  • "American Gothic." Civilization, May-June, 1996.
  • "Rita Dove's Mother Love / A Discussion," ed. Callaloo; 19:1.
  • "Learning from Others: The Poetry of James Dickey,” Raritan, Winter, 1996.
  • "Defending Wordsworth, Defending Poetry." Philosophy and Literature, Fall, 1995.
  • "Theory's Battle Against the Poets." Harper’s Magazine, August, 1995.
  • "Novel Characters: Don DeLillo Rewrites the Self." Yale Review, April, 1995.
  • "The Uses and Abuses of Ideology" in Writing Cultural Criticism, Torgovnick, ed. (Duke University Press, 1994).
  • "Bennington Means Business." The New York Times Magazine, October 23, 1994.
  • "Coleridge" in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (Johns Hopkins University Press,1993).
  • "Vital Intimations: Wordsworth and the Promise of Criticism." SAQ, Summer, 1992.
  • "Criticism Now: the Example of Wordsworth." Raritan, Fall, 1990.
  • "Romantic Self-Creations: Mailer and Gilmore in The Executioner's Song." Contemporary Literature, Fall, 1990.
  • "Whitman's American Elegy." Nineteenth Century Literature, Spring, 1990.
  • "Salman Rushdie: Prophet of a New Post-Modernism" Harper's Magazine, September, 1989.
  • "A Will to Cultural Power: Deconstructing the De Man Scandal." Harper's Magazine, July 1988.
  • "The Ethics of Deconstruction." Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall 1988.
  • Towards Reading Freud." The Kenyon Review, Spring 1988.
  • "Keats's Mortal Stance." Studies in Romanticism, Spring 1987.
  • "Emerson and the Work of Melancholia." Raritan, Spring 1987.

Recent Lectures

  • October 20, 2006 – “Why Read?” Waterford Symposium, Salt Lake City, Utah
  • October 6, 2006 – “Beyond Interpretation,” University of Wisconsin / Wisconsin Professor of English
  • September 8, 2006 – “Why Read?” Wilkes Barre College
  • April 27, 2006 – “What Is Humanism?” Dana College (President’s Inaugural Lecture)
  • April 26, 2006 – “Freud and Fundamentalism,” Last Lecture Series, University of Virginia
  • April 6, 2006 – “What’s a Liberal Arts Education For?” Ohio Wesleyan University, David G. Osborne Lecture
  • February 24, 2006 – “Why Read?” Southern Ohio Association of Colleges and Universities (plenary speech)
  • January 26, 2006 – “ Reading and Democracy,” American Association of Colleges and Universities Annual Convention, Washington D.C. (plenary speech)
  • November 15, 2005 – “Do Sports Really Build Character?” Fork Union Military Academy
  • November 3, 2005 – “Why Read?” The University of Iowa
  • October 21, 2005 – “How to Succeed at Failure,” Convocation Address, University of Virginia
  • October 8, 2005 – “The Art of Reading,” Woodberry Forest School
  • April 2, 2005 – “The Uses and Abuses of Literature for Life,” Yale University
  • March 18, 2005 – “Humanism and Faith,” Georgetown University
  • March 4, 2005 – “Is Reading Dead?” Hollins College
  • January 24, 2005 – “What Makes a Great Teacher?” Emory University (Kyzer Lecture)
  • October 21, 2004 – “Teaching the Truths,” University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Editor

  • Advisory Editor, Virginia Quarterly Review, 2004-
  • Contributing Editor, Raritan, 1991-
  • Contributing Editor, Harper's Magazine, 1984-

Honors

  • Guggenheim Fellow for 2005-2006.
  • New York Times Notable Book of the Year for Teacher, 2002.
  • Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Fellowship, Fall 2001.
  • NEH / Harry Jack Gray Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Hartford, Spring, 2001.
  • Senior Fellowship: Commonwealth Center for Literary and Cultural Change Fellow, 1992-1993.
  • Virginia Arts Council Grant for Fiction Writing, 1992.
  • Keats / Shelley Association Award, 1987, for the essay "Keats's Mortal Stance."