Curriculum Vitae
Academic and Professional Positions
Max Plank Institute, Frankfurt, Germany
- Visiting Professor of Aesthetics, 2015 to present
Harvard University
- Associate, Comparative Literature Department, 1985 to present
- Instructor, Harvard Extension School, 1999 to present
- Instructor, Harvard Summer School, 1985 to present
- Lecturer, History and Literary Faculty, 1994 to 1996
Teachers as Scholars
- Instructor, 1994 to present
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Literature Faculty
- Associate Professor, 1989 to 1994
- Assistant Professor, 1984 to 1989
University of California, Berkeley, Department of English
- Visiting Lecturer, 1983 to 1984
The Boston Book Review
- Editor, 1993 to 2000
Books
Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy, Translated with an Introduction and Notes, and a Foreword by Gore Vidal, Harcourt Brace, 2001
Ibsen's Drama: Right Action and Tragic Joy, St. Martin's Press, 1996
Joyce's Ulysses: An Anatomy of the Soul, University of North Carolina Press, 1988
Chapters in Books
“I had had one craving…,” in The Waking Dream of T. E. Lawrence: His Life, His Work, His Legacy, Palgrave, 2002
"'After The First Death, There Is No Other' Ibsen's Brand and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling," Ibsen Studies Vol. 1, Oslo, Fall 2000
"Catharsis, Ancient and Modern in The Master Builder," Ibsen im europaischen Spannungsfeld zwischen Naturalismus und Symbolismus, Peter Lang, 1998
"'The Kindness of Strangers: Savage Rescue in Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," Journal Of The Short Story in English, 25 (Fall 1996)
"What Happens in V.S. Pritchett's Stories," Journal Of The Short Story in English, 22 (Summer 1994)
"Will to Power, Poetic Justice, and Mimesis in The Picture of Dorian Gray" in Rediscovering Oscar Wilde, The Princess Grace Irish Library Lecture Series 8, edited by C. George Sandulescu. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1994
"Richard Chamberlain's Hamlet" in Meaning of the Medium: Perspectives on the Art of Television, Praeger, 1990
Articles and Reviews
“Che la diritta via era smarita: Dante’s Commedia and Beckett’s Texts for Nothing,” The Journal of the Short Story in English, Winter 2004
“With God All Things Are Possible: Philip Roth’s ‘The Conversion of the Jews,’” The Journal of the Short Story in English, Summer 1999
“The Kindness of Strangers: Savage Rescue in ‘The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone,’” The Journal of the Short Story in English, Autumn 1997
"What Else Were They Invented For: Joyce and Women" The Oxford Quarterly 2 (2) (Autumn 1997)
"Making Much of Nothing: Mock Epic and Values in Ulysses," James Joyce Quarterly, Summer 1996
“What Happens in V.S. Pritchett’s Stories,” The Journal of the Short Story in English, Summer 1994
"No More Virgil," Antaeus, 56, 1986
"Unveiling Joyce's 'Portrait,': Stephen Dedalus and 'The Encyclopaedia Britannica," The Southern Review 20 (2), 1984
"Hedda Gabler and 'The Dead'," ELH 50 (4), 1983
"Review of 'Cavafy's Collected Poems,' edited by George Savidis, translated by Keeley and Sherrard," Harvard Review, Winter 1993
"Review of 'Ezra Pound and the Symbolist Inheritance,' by Scott Hamilton," Harvard Review, Fall 1992
"Review of 'Is Literary History Possible,' by David Perkins," Harvard Review, Spring 1992
"Review of 'The Death of My Brother Abel,' by Gregory von Rizzori," Christian Science Monitor, October, 1985
"Review of 'The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers," by T.J. Clark, Christian Science Monitor, April, 1985
Translations
"The Ships," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Harper's, May, 2001
"A Second Odyssey," "Athena's Vote," "Oedipus," and "The Horses of Achilles," by Constantine P. Cavafy in "Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths", edited by Nina Kossman, Oxford University Press, 2001
"Horace in Athens," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Persephone, Winter 2001
"Morning Sea," "Candles," "In the Dull and Gloomy Village," and "The Windows," by Constantine P. Cavafy, in Metre No. 6, Summer 1999.
"At The Entrance to the Cafe," "Ionic," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Persephone, Vol. 4,
"In The Evening,""That They Might Appear," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Parnassus, Vol.24,No. 1
"The Tobacco Shop Window," "Since Nine O'Clock," "Remember, Body," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Agni 48
"They Might Have Bothered," "To Abide," "The American Scholar,"" by Constantine P. Cavafy, Summer 1998.
"One Night," "When the Watchman Saw the Light," by Constantine P. Cavafy, The Greensboro Review, Summer 1998
"The Ides of March," "The Satrapy," by Constantine P. Cavafy, DoubleTake, Spring 1998
"In the Wineshops," "Before Time Could Change Them," "The Bandaged Shoulder," by Constantine P. Cavafy, The Boston Phoenix, January 1998
"I Went," "Desires," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Persephone, Fall 1997
"Before the House," "In the Street," "Chandelier," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Agni Review, Spring 97
"Myris Alexandria, 340 A.D.," "Trojans," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Persephone, Spring, 1995
"The God Forsakes Antony," "The Horses of Achilles," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Persephone, Fall 1995
"As Long As You Can," "Waiting for the Barbarians," by Constantine P. Cavafy, Agni Review, Fall 1990
Invited European Lectures
“Tragedy or Martyrdom: Yourcenar’s Coup de Grace and Schlondorff’s,” Lecture at the Literature and Film Conference, Versailles, France, June 2011
“The Letter Killeth…In Print and on Film, Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Letter,’” Lecture at the Literature and Film Conference, La Sorbonne, Paris, June 2010
“Love, Loss and History in Cavafy’s Poetry,” University of Athens, Greece, April 2004
“Kavafis in Magna Graecia; moralita, historia, ed eros,” Conference at University of Catania and Arts Council of Syracuse, Sicily, May 17-20, 2002, Keynote Address
“Kavafis in Alexandria,” Conference organized by the Foundation for Hellenic Culture in Alexandria, Egypt, held at the Cavafy Museum, April 29, 2002, keynote address
"With God All Things Are Possible: Philip Roth's 'The Conversion of the Jews,'", Jews and the Other, A Conference sponsored by The Journal of the Short Story in English, University of Angers, France, March 1999
"After the first death there is no other: Ibsen's Brand and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling," Bergen, Trondheim, Tromso, and Oslo, April 1998
"Ibsen's Tragic Modernism, "Ibsen Society Conference, Gossensass, Italy, June 1997
"The Kindness of Strangers: Savage Rescue in Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," Other Places, Other Selves, A Conference sponsored by The Journal of the Short Story in English, University of Angers, France, January 1997
"Classical and Modernist katharsis in Ibsen's The Master Builder," St. John's College, Oxford University, February 1995
"Newman's Yes and Joyce's: A Grammar of Assent and Ulysses," James Joyce Summer School, University College, Dublin, July 1994
"What Else Were They Invented For?: Gender, Reality, and Epic Form in Joyce's Ulysses," Christ Church College, Oxford, Guest Lecture in Twentieth Century Literature Series, February 1994
"Mixed Blessings: Hellenism, Hebraism, and the Cultural Construction of Allegory in Joyce's Ulysses," Trinity College, Dublin, January 1994
"Comedy and Pathos in V.S. Pritchett's Stories," University of Angers, France, December 1993
"Making Much of Nothing: Epic, Mock-Epic, and Moral Value in Joyce's Ulysses," American Ambassador's Residence, Phoenix Park, Dublin, at the invitation of Jean Kennedy Smith, American Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, August 1993
"Poetic Justice, Mimesis, and the Will to Power in The Picture of Dorian Gray," Oscar Wilde Conference, Princess Grace Irish Library, Monte Carlo, June 1993
"What Else Were They Invented For?: Gender, Cosmology, and Epic Form in Joyce's Ulysses," University College Dublin, James Joyce Summer School, July 1992
Invited Latin American Lectures
Poets and Doctors: Grief and Recovery in Keats’ Ode On A Nightingale , July 2017 Universidad De IberoAmerica, Medical School, San Jose, Costa Rica
Invited Asian Lectures
Awareness and Joy in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. One World Academy, Chennai, India, August 2012
Invited American Lectures
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Harvard University, August 2017
Frank O’Hara’s Poetry and Spontaneous Joy, New York, NY for One World Academy, April, 2013
Les Murray,’s “An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow,” and Fullness of Being, for One World Academy, Pittsburg, October, 2012
H“Full-Throated Ease,” Performing One’s Being: Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” Pittsburgh, PA for One World Academy, April 2012
“Wordsworth’s “Intimation Ode” and the Transcendence of Sorrow,” for One World Academy, Garrison, New York
“The Writer’s Art: Saying and Making,” Department of English, Westminster College, PA, October, 2011
“Yeats and Cavafy: The Splendor of Byzantium,” Promethean Society, Washington DC, January, 2011
“Misrule and Bad Arguments: Aristophanic Comedy and Athenian Democracy,”
Greek Studies in the Schools, Brandeis University, March 2009
“American Poetry in the 1950’s,” Brookline Public Library, Teachers as Scholars Conference for the Brookline Public School System, January 2009
“Longing, Identity and Secrecy in Cavafy’s Poems,” 25th Anniversary Conference of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Association, Harvard University, September 2008
“Beauty at the Limit: Cavafy’s Erotic Cosmos,” Lamda Literary Conference, Provincetown, MA, October 2003
“The Life of Gods: Hellenism in Cavafy’s Poetry,” Boston University Series in Translation, Boston University, January 2003
“Saving Grace: Cavafy’s Poetry,” Center for Hellenic Culture, Cambridge MA, October, 2002
“Cavafy’s Histories and Loves,” Department of Comparative Literature, New York University, New York, November 2001
“Cavafy on Beauty and Loss,” The Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York, November 2001, sponsored by Poets and Writers and The New York State Council on the Arts
“Cavafy’s Portraits: Longing and Dissent,” Department of English, Washington University, St. Louis, October 2001
“Cavafy’s Exiled Modernism," Department of English, University of Minnesota, April 2001
“Cavafy’ and Yeats: Aesthetic History,” Department of English, Villanova University, April 2001
“A Fiction, A Dream of Passion: Plato and Aristotle on Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar
Named Desire" New York: The Harvard Club, February 2000
"Robert Frost's 'Home Burial': The Terror in Marriage," Newberry Library, Chicago, February, 1999
"Love Found Wanting: Chastened Ecstasy in Cavafy's Love Lyrics," New York Public Library, January, 1999
"Cavafy's Exiled Passions," Harvard University, Center for Literary and Cultural Study, November, 1998
"Who Sees Me Here? Berkeley's Epistemology and the Desire for Recognition in Joyce's Ulysses," Toronto, International Joyce Conference, June 1997
"Vengeance and 'The Fever of Injustice' in Ibsen's The Wild Duck," NEH Symposium at American Repertory Theater, Cambridge MA, January 1997
"Body Remember: Love, Loss, and Discovery in Cavafy's Poems," University of Virginia, Department of Classics, November 1996
"What Else Were They Invented For?: Gender, Cosmology, and Epic Form in Joyce's Ulysses," Bennington College, December 1991
"Action or Process?: How Stephen and Bloom Change in Ulysses," CUNY Graduate Center, New York, May 1990
"The Aria as Confession: Pace, Pace Mio Dio in Verdi's La forza del destino, Modern Language Association, Washington DC, December 1989
"Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Ibsen's Ghosts," Inaugural Lecture, Wilson Younger Critics Series, University of Montana, Missoula, November 1989
"Joyce and the Soul's Conceptual Inheritance," International James Joyce Conference, Philadelphia, PA, June 1989
"Culture and Anarchy in Ulysses," Washington University, St. Louis, MO, January 1984
"Victorian Ideology of Art and the Artist in Joyce's Fiction," Department of English, University of California, Berkeley, May 1983
Public Lecture Series
Being Awake: Thoreau’s Walden, Peabody Institute Library, Fall 2017
The House of Mirth and The Spirit of Independence, Peabody Institute Library, Summer, 2017
Hamlet and his Interpreters, , Peabody Institute Library, Spring 2017
Twentieth Century American Poetry, Peabody Institute Library, Fall 2016
Novels of the Artist’s Birth: The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather, A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, James Joyce, Salem Athenaem, Spring 2017
Thornton Wilder’s The Eigth Day, Philosophy, Religion and the Novel, Salem Athenaeum, Spring 2016
Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities , Peabody Institute Library, Summer 2016
The Poetry of Robert Frost, Peabody Institute Library, Octover-November 2015
William Faulkner’s Light in August, Peabody Institute Library, July-August, 2015
Southern American Short Stories, Salem Athenaeum, February-April, 2015
Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Peabody Institute Library October-November, 2014
Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, Peabody Institute LibraryJuly-August, 2014
F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, Peabody Institute Library October-November 2013
Robert Penn Warren, All The King’s Men, Peabody Institute Library July-August, 2013
“Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,” Peabody Institute Library July-August 2012
The Novella, Tolstoy to Eudora Welty, Salem Athenaeum, February-April, 2014
Ibsen, Shaw, and Chekhov, Salem Athenaeum, February-April, 2013
Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” Peabody Institute Library September-December 2011
The Art and Thought of Oscar Wilde, Salem Athenaeum, February-April, 2012
Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn, “ Salem Athenaeum, February-April, 2011
Teachers As Scholars, Lectures and Symposia
The Exstentialist Novel: Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Nikos Kazantzakis and Walker Percy, 2015-2016
The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann, 2014-2015
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 2013-2014
“Epic American Novels: Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, 2011-2012
“Love and Work in American Cinema in the 20th Century, 2011-2012
“African American Identity and the American Novel: Baldwin’s Go Tell It on The Mountain, Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Matt Johnson’s Pym.” April, 2012
“Dreams of American Virtue: American Movies in the 20th Century,” 2010-11
“Your Better Half: Shelley’s Frankenstein, Stevenson’s Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray,” September, 2011
“Through Me the Voices: Leaves of Grass, The Waste Land and Ariel,” 2011
“American Film Comedy of the 50’s: Some Like it Hot and Pillow Talk” April 2010
“Problem Children: The Catcher in the Rye and A Member of the Wedding” April 2009
“The Shakespearean Family: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear” April 2008
“Yeats as Bard and Lover," April, 2007
“Contemporary American Drama: Glengarry Glen Ross , David Mamet, Fences, August Wilson, and Doubt, John Patrick Shanley, April 2006
“Manliness in American Fiction: The Son Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitztgerald, and American Hero, Norman Mailer, April 2005
“Three Classic Short Story Collections: 9 Stories, J.D. Salinger, 13 Stories, Eudora Welty, and Goodby Columbus and other Stories, Philip Roth, April 2004
“American Love Stories: Nightwood , Tender is the Night, and Lolita, January 2002
“Pragmatic Ideals in American Film: The Imitation of Life, Easy Rider, Wall Street, July 2001
“The Problem of Believing in the fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Ernest Hemingway,” June 2001
“Ulysses: The Learned Epic and the Realistic Novel,” November 2000 to May 2001
“Willa Cather’s Fiction: Longing and the Real,” April 2001
“Making it New: American Modernism. Winesburg, Ohio, A Farewell to Arms, and As I Lay Dying.” December 2000
"The Cinematic Epic: "Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey," June 2000
"Loving and Leaving: Shakespeare's Sonnets" May 2000
"Getting It Right: Moral and Aesthetic Decorum in Hemingway's Short Fiction" May 2000
"The Pure Products of America Go Crazy" The Poetry of Salvation in Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams and Frank O'Hara, November 1999
"Love American Style: Romantic Comedy on Film, The Awful Truth, Roman Holiday, Moonstruck, June 1999
"The Poet As Sage: T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, W.H. Auden," March 1999
"A Good End: Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich," January 1999
"Love is Not Love: Shakespeare's Sonnets," December, 1998
"Love, loyalty, and figures of speech: Williams, Albee, Mamet," November, 1998
"Oedipus Rex and The Importance of Being Earnest," May, 1998
"Doing the Right Thing: Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw," March 1998
"Longing and Self-creation in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, December 1997
"Ten American Women Poets," May 1997
"Realism, Surrealism, and the Fable: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis," April, 1997
"I Myself Am Hell: Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit and Shakespeare's Macbeth," January 1997
"Twentieth Century American Drama, The Apogee: "Death of a Salesman," "The Iceman Cometh," and "A Streetcar Named Desire," Three Day Seminar for Teachers as Scholars, November 1996
"Hamlet, or The Ambiguities," One Day Seminar for Teachers as Scholars, November 1996
"Criminal-heroes, the Canon, and genre-fiction in American Literature: The Scarlet Letter and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," for New England School Development Council, March 1996
“Desire and Discovery in American Lyric Poetry: Dickinson and Whitman," for New England School Development Council, February 1996
"Freedom and Responsibility in Hamlet," for New England School Development Council, May 1995
"Advancing Backwards: Homer's Odyssey" for New England School Development Council, April 1995
"Perfection and the Limits of Loving Knowledge: Dante's Paradiso," for New England School Development Council, March 1995
"Restoring the Will: Dante's Purgatorio," for New England School Development Council, March 1995
"The Medieval Subsuming of Classical Culture: Dante's Inferno," for New England School Development Council, February 1995
"Beauty and the Defeated Self: Joyce's Dubliners," for New England School Development Council, December 1994
History and Literature Series at Harvard University
The Natural Mind of the Poet: Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams," March 1996
"Modernist Classicism: Ezra Pound," February 1996
"Monuments of Unaging Intellect: History in Yeats's Late Poems," April 1995
"Classical and Modern Apologias for War: Auden's 'The Shield of Achilles," March 1995
"Canonical and Criminal American Elegies: Longfellow's 'The Jewish Cemetery at Newport,' and Frank O'Hara's 'The Day Lady Died,'" February 1995
Consultancies
Advisor to Former Prime Minister of Greece, George Pappandreaou, Ted Talk, 2013
Dramaturge to Andre Gregory's Production of Ibsen's The Master Builder, 1997 to 1999
Lectures and Conferences on American and European Literature for Amaranth, Women's Continuing Education Group, 1989 to present
Treasurer Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Boston, 1996 to present
Hellenic Resources Institute, Cambridge MA, 1992-93
Script Writing Consultant to ABC Studios, New York, 1991
WGBH TV, Boston, Literary Advisor for "Writers on Writing," 1991
Languages
French, Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek
Fields of Interest
19th-20th Century Comparative Literature; Modern and Contemporary Drama; Joyce; Ibsen; Dante; Critical and Cultural Theory; Tragedy; Epic ; Cavafy; Opera
Courses Taught
Soul Searching and The Novel: To the Lighthouse, Zorba the Greek, The Moviegoer, Housekeeping
What Does it Profit a Man: The Moneyed World and the Novel. Emile Zola, L’Argent, Theodore Dreiser, The Financier, and Louis Auchincloss, The Embezzler
Caught In The Act: Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad, The Ambassadors, Henry James, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Surviving Love-Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary, Zeno’s Conscience, Tender is the Night
False Gods—The Novel of Moral Development: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Fitzgerald
Desire and Discontent in the American Novel: Henry James to Philip Roth
Four American Poets: Whitman, Dickinson, Williams, Bishop
Criminal Love in the American Novel
Beckett and Ibsen
Oscar Wilde on the Uses and Abuses of Art and Life
Tragedy Ancient and Modern: Aeschylus’s Oresteia and Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!
Tragedy Ancient and Modern: Homer's Iliad and Melville's Moby-Dick
Saving the Soul: Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche
Sacred Beauty and Moral Realism: Baudelaire, Ibsen, Joyce
Literary and Philosophical Modernism
Nationalism, Literature and Self in Joyce's Ulysses
The Modern British Novel
The Modern Epic Novel: Proust, Mann, Joyce
The Epic Novel: War and Peace and Ulysses
The Epic--Ancient, Medieval, Modern: Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Commedia, and Joyce' s Ulysses
Joyce and Dante
Joyce’s Fiction: Dubliner’s, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses
The Novel of Ideas: Magic Mountain and Ulysses
Introduction to Drama
Introduction to Fiction
Introduction to Poetry
Tragedy
Twentieth Century Drama
O'Neill, Pinter, Beckett
Ibsen, O'Neill, Beckett
Opera and Theatrical Narrative
Eighteenth Century Poetry
Romantic Poetry
Modernist Poetry
Great Books: Homer to Dante
Critical Theory: Ancient to Medieval
Critical Theory: Renaissance to Modern
University Service at MIT
Board of Advisors to Baker Memorial Foundation, 1991
Faculty Summer Seminar, Lyric Poetry, 1989
Committee on Academic Performance, 1989-91
Curriculum Committee, Literature Faculty, 1988-89
Faculty Summer Seminar, Shakespeare, 1988
Faculty Summer Seminar, Homer to Joyce, 1987
MIT/Wellesley Exchange Coordinator, 1986-88
Advisor to Literature Majors, 1985-91
Fellowships and Honors
Honoree at 16th Annual Gala Tribute to Teaching, University of Wisconsin, June 2001
Peter Shattuck Award for Excellence in Teaching, Harvard University, June 1999
Junior Faculty Humanities Research Chair, MIT, 1989-91
Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, MIT, 1989
Mabelle McLeod Lewis Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 1983
Regents Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 1983
Education
Ph.D. English, University of California, Berkeley, 1983
Magna Cum Laude, Williams College, 1977