• B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1973
• M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1974
• M.A., University of Mississippi, 1982
• Ph.D., Duke University, 1990.

General Fields of Professional Interest
nineteenth-century American literature
narrative forms of the short story

Pedagogical Style
I attempt to balance lectures, discussion (using Socratic methods), student presentations, and essay assignments to inspire students to become self-reliant defenders of their insights and opinions about a text. In freshmen courses, I stress the benefits of working through multiple drafts to hone an argument. In upper-division classes, I prefer a seminar format that permits students to generate some of the topics treated in classroom discussion. Or, to quote Indiana Jones, "I don't know. I'm just making this up as I go along."

Other Information
Member MLA, NEMLA, AAUP; faculty advisor for The Crimson
and Gray [Saint Joseph's student literary magazine].

• English 1011 (The Craft of Language)
• English 1021 (Texts and Contexts)
• English 1071 (Rhetoric in Modern Practice)
• English 1091 (Major American Writers)
• American literature courses at the 2400 and 2700 level
• English 2661 (The Essay)
• English 2911 (Literary Forms and Styles)
• English 2931 (Poetry Seminar)
• English 2991 (coordinator for internships)

Selected Publications
"Henry James's "Decidedly Primitive Stage of Reflection" [conference paper] NEMLA (April 1998)

Maupassant and the American Short Story: The Influence of Form at the Turn of the Century (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994)

Fin de millénaire: Poe's Legacy for the Detective Story (Baltimore: Poe Society, 1993)

"Entrapment, Flight and Death: A Recurring Motif in Dickens with Plot and Interpretive Consequences for Edwin Drood," Essays in Arts and Sciences 20 (1991): 68-84

"On Primitivism in The Call of the Wild," American Literary Realism 20 (1987): 76-80