JAMES DAWES
Department of English
Macalester College
1600 Grand Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105
CURRENT POSITION:
MACALESTER
COLLEGE
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature, 2001-present
(2003)
PREVIOUS ACADEMIC POSITION:
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows, 1998-2001
EDUCATION:
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
Ph. D. in English and American Literature, 1998
M.A. in English and American Literature, 1994
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (KING'S COLLEGE)
M. Phil. in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 1992
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
B.A. in Arts and Sciences, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, with distinction
in English, 1991
BOOK PUBLICATION: The Language of War: Literature and Culture
in the United States from the Civil War through World War II (Harvard
University Press, 2002)
Examining
literature and culture in the United States from the Civil War through
World War II, The Language of War judges the way war trauma is narrated,
organized and sometimes reproduced through the work of memory and representation.
The book proceeds by developing two primary questions: How does the
strategic violence of war affect literary, legal, and philosophical
representations? And, in turn, how do such representations affect the
reception and initiation of violence itself? Central authors include
Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, Generals William Sherman
and Ulysses S. Grant, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner,
and Joseph Heller. Theoretical authors and texts range from William
James and John Dewey to Maurice Blanchot, the Geneva Conventions, and
contemporary American organizational sociology and language theory.
PUBLISHED
ARTICLES:
MASS
MEDIA:
Newspaper
interviews for political and cultural analysis appearing in the Los
Angeles Times, the Guardian (England) [reprinted in the Tallahassee
Democrat], the Philadelphia Inquirer [multiple], the Minneapolis
Star Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston
Chronicle, and the Raleigh News and Observer [reprinted in
the Sacramento Bee and the Fresno Bee].
Radio interviews
for political and cultural analysis recorded by the BBC: "Weekend
News (National)," "Good Morning Wales," and "BBC
Northhampton" Morning News.
Radio interviews
for political and cultural analysis recorded by National Public Radio:
"The Connection" (nationally syndicated), "Radio Times"
(Philadelphia), and "Morning Edition" (Boston). The National
Public Radio interviews are available on the Web:
(1) The
Connection (in studio, live, one-hour)
(2) Radio Times
(by telephone, live, one-hour)
(3) "Morning
Edition"
(pre-recorded arts feature with novelist Tim O'Brien, seven minutes)
Radio interview
for political and cultural analysis recorded by
WCCO Radio.
New
York Times. Letter to the Editor: "The Metaphor of War."
September 14, 2001.
Washington
Post. Letter to the Editor: "Campus Morality." January
2, 2002.
The
New Republic. Letter to the Editor: "Soldier On." October
21, 2002.
SELECTED
FELLOWSHIPS, HONORS, AND AWARDS:
Macalester
College:
Lilly Fellow,
Macalester College (received Lilly Course Development Award, Fall 2001)
Harvard
University:
William
F. Milton Fund Recipient, 2001 (a $24,000 research grant from the Harvard
Medical School to fund research in language theory)
Mellon
Dissertation Finishing Year Fellowship, 1997-1998
Dexter
Traveling Fellowship, Summer 1997
Distinguished
Teaching Awards: Spring 1996, Fall 1996, Spring 1997
Member
of the Derek Bok Center's Senior Teaching Fellows Program, 1996-1997
(a workshop for teaching fellows in the arts and sciences who received
the highest ratings in University-wide evaluations; met biweekly to
research pedagogical techniques and to promote the quality of teaching
at Harvard through such initiatives as the Senior Teaching Fellows Mentoring
Program)
Fellow
in the John F. Kennedy School of Government Program in Ethics, 1994-1995
(fully funds one year of independent research; Fellows work in association
with distinguished academics in the fields of law, business, medicine,
and the humanities)
Mellon
Fellowship for Support of Summer Research, 1995
Member
of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, 1994-1996
Jacob K.
Javits Fellowship, 1994-1998
English
Tutor at Quincy House, 1992-1998
English
Prize Fellowship, 1992-1994
University
of Cambridge (King's College):
Thouron
Scholarship, 1991-1992 (academic/diplomatic scholarship designed to
foster Anglo-American relations; fully funds one year of post-graduate
study)
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:
"Media
and the War." Solicited speaker for Macalester's public conference,
"Iraq:
Anatomy of a Crisis" (April 9, 2003)
"The
Language of War." Solicited speaker and public seminar leader at
the Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
(November 22, 2002)
"Humanitarian
Guilt: Interrogating Survivors of Atrocities." Solicited speaker
and roundtable discussant at the American Studies and War Narratives
Conference
at the University of California, Santa Barbara (May 11, 2002)
Session
moderator for "The Ethics and Politics of Comparison," a conference
sponsored by the Mellon Foundation Co-Mentoring Project of Macalester
and Carleton Colleges (April 13, 2002)
"Counting
on the Battlefield: The Civil War Literature of Stephen Crane,"
delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Literature Association,
Baltimore, MD (May 28, 1999)
"Teaching
at Macalester: The First Year," a talk delivered at Macalester's
New Faculty Orientation (August 29, 2002)
College
coordinator for the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities English Majors
Conference (Spring, 2002)
"Humanitarian
Guilt." Talk delivered at Macalester as part of the English
Department's "Works-in-Progress" series (Spring, 2002)
"Discussion
Leading in the Humanities." Lecture delivered at the Harvard
University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Orientation
(Winter Orientation, January 27, 1998; also Fall Orientation, September
14, 1998)
"Witnessing
Battle: The Diaries of Mary Chesnut," delivered at the English
Student Association Graduate Student Conference, City University of
New York (March 19, 1999)
Associate
Coordinator for Harvard's National Graduate Student Conference, "Anonymity
in Literary Studies," and chairperson for the "Memorials and
Anonymity" and "Naming and Anonymity" panels (March 15-16,
1997)
Associate
Coordinator for "Literary and Cultural Studies Today," the
tenth Anniversary symposium of the Center for Literary and Cultural
Studies at Harvard (October 21-22, 1994)
ORGANIZATIONS
FOUNDED:
Founded
the Literary and Cultural Studies Faculty Workshop. The Summer 2003
workshop, entitled "Criticism and Ethics in American Studies and
Literary Theory," featured seven speakers from universities across
the nation. The LCSF Workshop creates opportunities for intensive critical
engagement with the current research of leading scholars in the fields
of literary, cultural, and historical studies. The seminar promotes
free scholarly debate and the formation and continuation of collaborative
projects across disciplinary and geographical borders.
www.macalester.edu/cst/Americanist2003workshop.html
Founded
the Southern Minnesota Americanist Colloquium. Faculty from the University
of Minnesota, Carleton, the College of St. Catherine, and Macalester
meet over dinner once every five weeks throughout the academic year
to discuss pre-circulated works-in-progress. The colloquium brings in
an out-of-state speaker for the year-end meeting (Fall 2002-present).
Co-founded
Macalester's "New Writing Workshop," a bi-weekly extracurricular
forum for students to read and discuss their creative writing (Fall
2001-present).
TEACHING
EXPERIENCE:
MACALESTER
COLLEGE
