works forthcoming & in progress:

Books:

Toward a More Social Theory of Literary Creativity: Hopkins and His Contemporaries argues for a more social, rhetorical model of mental life, empha­sizing the role of contemporaries, especially groups in the creative pro­cess. An extensive theoretical and historical introduction is followed by examples of creative interactions and a conclusion. The introduction identifies the shift from individual to collaborative creativity seen today in intranets and the internet as a sign of the new paradigm of social online literacy threatening the old one of individualistic print literacy. The deep roots of the old model of creativity as the product of the individual, suffering male genius are explored. Yet collaboration is also demonstrated to be a mode of creativity available in print literacy, especially when we include symbiotic rivalry. The creativity of small groups, rather than individuals or social collectives is stressed. Groups such the Pre-Raphaelites (including Christina Rossetti, Swinburne, Hopkins, Pater), and the Geneva circle (Byron, Polidori, and the Shelleys) as seen as forerunners of the intranets of our day and as communities in the arts inviting comparison to those in science, especially in terms of their group dynamics and communication networks. The history of these groups advances our understanding of allusions among contemporaries, especially metalepsis, deep parody, and antiparody, and enables us to expand Harold Bloom’s theory of influence. For example, an artist’s choice of precursors is seen primarily as not an individual but a collaborative decision of one’s contemporaries. Ultimately, the book advances toward the model of social creativity in the new paradigm by demonstrating that the myth of creativity as the product of the suffering, individual male in isolation is not valid even where it most seems to be, in a poet such as Hopkins. Ultimately, the Conclusion argues that we may find that the terms “originality” and “creativity” are no longer appropriate descriptions of invention in the new sensibility: as we adopt more collaborative ideals new terms as well as new concepts may be required.

                  In addition, the sense of time in the new paradigm is addressed. The fixation with the present in the online literacy is contrasted with the obsession with the past in print literacy, especially in the humanities. The desire of artists such as those in the Pre-Raphelite circle to return to the origin is not only identified as a source of their creativity but is suggested as a counterpoise to the obsessions with progress and the present moment in online literacy. On the other hand, living in the now is seen as a necessary corrective to the tendency of advocates of print literacy to live in the past and suffer from the anxiety of influence identified by Bloom and others. In this way the need is established to revise the new temporal sensibility advanced by online literacy so that it is more equitably balanced in its orientations to past, present, and future.

The Family Dynamics of Literature is integration of my essays and reviews in this field. In a book length project I will also be able to present other examples of the template of a new literary criticism showing the relevance of the psychology of emotion and family systems to many of the other contemporary American novels I could only mention in my “Family Dynamics” article. In addition to demonstrating the value of family systems theory for understanding realistic family fiction of the last two hundred years, a book length project would enable me to explore how readers respond to such works. Family systems research suggests that a response to a work of art may be not only that of the “individual” but also that of family members the individual has internalized. Thus if reader-centered criticism is to focus, as Rogers suggested in Self and Other: Object Relations in Psychoanalysis and Literature, on “the elaborate matching” between the personal universes of the creator of the work of art and the one who apprehends it “cognitively and affectively, at both conscious and unconscious levels,” we need to remember that the matches are often between entire family systems, not just the isolated personalities of the creator and perceiver. Hence in a book-length project I want to develop a family systems alternative to Norman Holland’s personal identity, cognitive-matching experiments in Five Readers Reading, and to explore the interface between this new kind of reader-centered criticism and bibliotherapy.

Multimedia CD-ROMs:

A Multimedia Autobiography: This CD includes photographs, drawings, video and audio memories. In the adolescence module, the unique power of multimedia to recreate the feel of an era and to communicate emotion is tapped, addressing the right brain as well as the left brain. However, the most innovative aspect of the project is the first module. The goal is to attempt to communicate the first years of a child’s life through media other than words as much as possible, demonstrating that multimedia matches the early experience of life better than words possibly can. This first module also has a video help system.

Articles:

"Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: a Template for Emotive Criticism." 33 pp. MS. Being revised for College Literature