Stephen N. doCarmo

Curriculum Vitae

Last updated: March 2008
 

EDUCATION

Examination Fields:

Twentieth-Century American Literature

Film and Mass Culture

Critical Theory 

B.A. English, Radford University; Radford, Va.  May 1991.
 

PUBLICATIONS

History and Refusal: Consumer Culture and Postmodern Theory in the Contemporary American Novel.  Forthcoming from Lehigh University Press.
 

ARTICLES:

"Postmodernist Quietism in Roman Polanski's Chinatown and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive."  Forthcoming in The Journal of Popular Culture.

"Bombs from Coke Cans: Appropriating Mass Culture in Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country." The Journal of Popular Culture  36 (2003): 589-99.

This article is reproduced in the "Recent Scholarship" section of the online version of The Journal of American History 90 (2003).

"Subjects, Objects, and the Postmodern Differend in Don DeLillo's White Noise." LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 11 (2000): 1-33.

"History, Refusal, and the Strategic-Essentialist Politics of Thomas Pynchon's Vineland." Pynchon Notes 44-45 (1999): 173-94.
 

BOOK REVIEW:

James A. Freeman's novel Parade of Days. Paterson Literary Review  34 (2005): 248-49. 
 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Litr 232: American Literature II (8 sections).
• Litr 275: Introduction to the Novel (1 section).
• Litr 277: Introduction to Short Fiction (3 sections).
• Comp 111: English Compositon II (15 sections).
• Comp 110: English Composition I (10 sections).
• Comp 107: Introduction to Rhetorical Skills (1 section).

• English 110: Introduction to Poetry (1 section).
• English 116: Introduction to Comparative Literature (1 section).
• English 220: Journalism I (1 section).
• English 325: Journalism Practicum (1 section).
• English 285: Contemporary Literature (1 section).
• English 104: Communications and Thought II (2 sections).
• English 375: Topics in American Literature: Postmodernism (1 section)
• English 375: Topics in American Literature, Independent Study (1 section).

• English 215: American Writers (2 sections).

• English 380: Contemporary Fiction (1 section).

• English 165: Introduction to Literature (2 sections). 
• English 120: Effective Writing (2 sections). 

• English 1: Composition & Literature I (8 sections).
• English 2: Composition & Literature II (8 sections).

• English 100: Writing (1 section). 

• English 104: Communications & Thought II (Summer 2000, 1 section).
• English 116: Introduction to Comparative Literature (Summer 1999, 1 section).
• English 285: Contemporary American Literature (Summer 1999, 1 section).
• English 130: Introduction to Mass Media.  (Fall 1997, 1 section).

• English 101: Expository Writing (3 sections).
• English 102: The Research Paper (3 sections).

TEACHING INTERESTS

Modern and Contemporary American Literature, Composition, Film and Mass Culture, Critical Theory, Contemporary Anglophone World Literature, Journalism.
 

DISSERTATION
Title: History and Refusal: The Opposition to Consumer Culture in Contemporary American Fiction

Brief Abstract: My dissertation examines the means by which a number of contemporary American novelists formulate opposition to a late-capitalist consumer culture proclaimed, in recent years, to be all but unassailable. I begin by considering John Gardner's October Light and Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, two novels demonstrating the poverty of traditional (or essentialist) left- and right-wing attacks on mass culture. I then consider the more postmodern and poststructuralist modes of dissent employed by Thomas Pynchon (Vineland), Mark Leyner (Et Tu, Babe), Bobbie Ann Mason (In Country), and Don DeLillo (White Noise), as well as their intersections with such theorists as Frederic Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Gayatri Spivak, and Jean-Francois Lyotard.  With their assertion that neither capital (which becomes analogous to language itself) nor the simulation-laden culture it spawns must be razed or escaped before we can become more ethical and humane people, these latter novelists indicate, I argue, the more fruitfully "post-Marxist" direction our culture's most serious dissenters will have to pursue from now on.

Director: Elizabeth Fifer
Readers: Alexander Doty, Scott Paul Gordon, Robert Rosenwein

Please feel free to peruse my dissertation here. 
 

NATIONAL CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

"'Writing to Learn' as a Student-Engagement Strategy."  A joint presentation with Dr. Hendrik Booraem of Bucks County Community College.  Faculty of the Future Conference, Bucks County Community College, Newtown, PA, June 2006.

"Postmodernist Quietism in Roman Polanski's Chinatown."  Popular Culture Association Conference, San Diego, March 2005. 

"'It Bears Repeating': The Strokes, The Hives, and The White Stripes Do the Pop Past in Postmodernity."  Popular Culture Association Conference, New Orleans, April 2003.

"Beyond Good and Evil: Mass Culture Theorized in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine."  Popular Culture Association Conference, Toronto, March 2002.

"Postmodernism Homeopathic and Accidental in John Gardner's October Light and Bret Easton Ellis'sAmerican Psycho."   Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 2001.

"Bombs from Coke Cans: Appropriating Mass Culture in Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country and Mark Leyner's Et Tu, Babe."  Popular Culture Association Conference, New Orleans, April 2000.

"Subjects, Objects, and the Postmodern Differend in Don DeLillo's White Noise."  Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 1999.

"The Poststructuralist Politics of Thomas Pynchon's Vineland."  Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 1998.

"ITness: A Poststructuralist Consideration of the Beat Poets."  Twentieth-Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, February 1996

"Simulation, Schizophrenia, Zoology: The Non-Canonical and Postmodern Art of U2."  Panel Presentation.  Conference on Literature and Film, Florida State University, January 1994.
 

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT-OF-ENGLISH PRESENTATIONS

"Don DeLillo and the Project of Postmodern Politics."  Presented to the Lehigh University Department of English, April 1999.

"Nada, Differance, and the Politics of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms."  Presented to the Lehigh University Department of English, April 1997.

"Using Mass Culture Texts in the Writing Classroom."  A Workshop for Lehigh University Teaching Fellows, April 1997.
 

OTHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Participant in the 2003 CIWIC (Computers in Writing-Intensive Classrooms) Symposium at Michigan Tech, June 2003.

Participant at the annual AAHE Symposium, Vermont, July 2002.  (Worked with a team of BCCC faculty to create a means for assessing the institution's distance-learning program.)
 

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE AND ACADEMIC SERVICE

Fellow in Bucks County Community College's Writing-to-Learn initiative, Fall 2005-Present.

Co-organizer of Bucks County Community College's Poetry Series, Fall 2003-Spring 2008.

Member of BCCC's Language and Literature Department's Screening Committee, Fall 2003-Spring 2004, Fall 2006-Spring 2008.

Member of Bucks County Community College's Academic Advising & Developmental Education Committee, Fall 2005-Present.

Chair of Bucks County Community College's Cultural Programming Committee, Fall 2003-Spring 2005.

Faculty Advisor for DeSales University's Student Newspaper, The Minstrel, Fall 2001-Spring 2002.

Writer and Web-Page Manager for Lehigh University's LEWIS Project, Fall 1999-Spring 2000.  (Produced material about and maintained an informative website on the "Lehigh Enterprise-Wide Information System" as Lehigh adopted SCT Corporation's "Banner" suite of software applications.  See http://www.lehigh.edu/lewis for more.)

Research Assistant for Professor Elizabeth Fifer, Lehigh University Department of English, Spring 1999.

Faculty Search Committee Member, Lehigh University Department of English, Fall 1998.  (Reviewed applications from and participated in MLA interviews with prospective faculty for a Modern American & British literature position.)

Undergraduate Committee Member, Lehigh University Department of English, 1997-98.  (Helped formulate policies for undergraduate English majors.)

Editor and proofreader of Lehigh University's Self-Study for the Middle States Accreditation Committee, 1997-98.

Graduate Liason, Lehigh University Department of English, Fall 1994-Spring 1996.  (Acted as a mediary between the Department Chair and graduate students; dispersed departmental information to and organized meetings and elections for graduate students.)

Mentor to incoming graduate students, Lehigh University Department of English, 1995, 1997-98.
 

HONORS AND AWARDS

E.W. Fairchild Fellow in American Studies, Lehigh University, 1997-98.

Passed Two of Three Doctoral Examinations With Distinction, December 1996.

Passed M.A. Exams With Distinction, May 1994.

Teaching Fellowships, Radford and Lehigh Universities, Fall 1992-Spring 1997.
 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

REFERENCES

Confidential dossier, writing sample, and teaching portfolio available upon request from Carol Laub; Lehigh University; Department of English; 35 Sayre Drive; Bethlehem, PA, 18015. (610) 758-3310.
 

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