Our Faculty

Richard Fusco, Ph.D.

Professor

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Department

Office

Merion 131

Phone

610-660-1887
Contact
    • 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, AAUP

  • Selected Publications

    • 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