John Michael

John Michael

John Hall Deane Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry

Professor of English

Professor of Visual and Cultural Studies

Director, American Studies

PhD, The Johns Hopkins University

Office Location
405 Morey Hall
Telephone
(585) 275-9259

Curriculum Vitae

Research Overview

John Michael's research interests include: U. S. and diasporic literatures and cultures; academic intellectuals and popular politics; national literatures in global contexts; translation studies; the institutional and theoretical implications of the contemporary humanities.

Research Interests

  • American literature
  • critical theory
  • cultural studies

Selected Publication Covers

Selected Publications

  • “World Theory: Amitav Ghosh on Being at Sea,” symplokè 28:1-2 (2020) 331-48.
  • “Secular Lyric: The Modernization of the Poem in Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson,” Fordham University Press 2018
  • “Lyric History: Temporality, Rhetoric, and the Ethics of Poetry,” NLH 48 (Spring 2017) 2: 265-84.
  • “Tragedy and Translation: A Future for Critique in a Secular Age,” in Critique and Post-Critique ed. Rita Felski and Elizabeth Anker (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017) 252-78.
  • Lyric History: Temporality, Rhetoric, and the Ethics of Poetry. New Literary History (Johns Hopkins University Press). 2016
  • "Profiles in Courage, JFK's Books for Boys," in American Literary History (5 July 2012)
  • "The Presence of Immigrants, or Why Mexicans and Arabs Look Alike," in Making Sense of Presence: Philosophy, History and Politics, spec. issue of Storia della Storiographia 55 (2009), 144-58
  • Identity and the Failure of America from Thomas Jefferson to the War on Terror, University of Minnesota 2008
  • "Liberal Justice and Particular Identity: Cavell, Emerson, Rawls," in Arizona Quarterly 64.1 (2008), 27-47
  • "Identity, Masochism, and the Democratic Intellectual in the War on Terror," in Intellectuals and Public Responsibility, spec. issue of The Hedgehog Review (2007), 71-80
  • Review: George Snedeker, The Politics of Critical Theory: Language/Discourse/Society, in Socialism and Democracy 19.1 (2005)
  • "Beyond Us and Them: Identity and Terror from an Arab-American's Perspective," in Palestine America, spec. issue o South Atlantic Quarterly 102.4 (2003), 701-28
  • Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values, Duke 2000
  • Emerson and Skepticism: The Cipher of the World, Johns Hopkins 1988

Forthcoming

  • “Death, Love, and Emerson’s Poetry"

Work in progress

  • Modern Poetry in Nineteenth-Century America: Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, and Death

Teaching

  • John Michael's teaching interests span the corpus of American literature, the questions of aesthetics, and the demands of worldly criticism and critical theory in a situation that has been global for a very long time.

Honors

  • Presidential Fellow, Salzburg Seminars, Salzburg, Austria, 1993
  • Fulbright Lecturing Award, Instytut Anglistyki, Uniwersytet warszawski, Poland, 1990-91
  • CIES Fellowship, Summer Polish Institute, University of Pittsburgh, 1990
  • Junior Faculty Research Fellowship, University of Rochester, 1989
  • William B. Kenan Teaching Fellowship for Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching, The Johns Hopkins University, 1981-82 and 1982-83
  • Humanities Center Fellowship for Study in Paris, The Johns Hopkins University, 1980-81
  • Human Biology Fellowship, The Johns Hopkins University, 1979-80
  • Graduate Fellowship, The Johns Hopkins University, 1977-79
  • Advisory Board, Journal of Narrative Theory, 2000-present
  • Editorial Board, Telos, 1990-98
  • Steering Committee, Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Conference, Rochester, 1994
  • Tenure and Promotion Referee for (most recently) Princeton University, University of Michigan, Georgia Technological Institute, New York University
  • Outside Reader, Westview Press, University of Minnesota Press, Harper Collins, University of Chicago Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, University of Oklahoma Press, PMLA