Office: Keezell 416
Phone: 540-568-6223
Fax: 540-568-2983
Email: facknima@jmu.edu
Office Hours:

Courses: Fall 2013
GEng 248: Survey of American Literature II (with William Lawton)
Eng 299: Writing about Literature
Eng 410: Advanced Studies in Author: Willa Cather.

Interests:  Twentieth-century American and British literature; history of literary
          theory; creative non-fiction; war, commemoration, memory, and the arts

Education:
Ph.D., English, University of New Mexico, 1983
MFA, Iowa Writer's Workshop, University of Iowa, 1977
Assistant d'anglais, Lycée Carnot, Dijon, France, 1972-73
B.A., magna cum laude, French, Lawrence University of Wisconsin, 1972
Secondary degree, Collège du Léman, Versoix, Geneva, Switzerland, 1968
                                                                             
Grants and Awards:
JMU CIT grant for development of online version of creative nonfiction, May 2008

Fulbright American Studies Institute, Egypt.  Ain Soukhna, 28 January-3 February, 2005

JMU Curriculum Development Grant, Summer 2004 (Course on Vietnam conflict)

JMU  Faculty Development Leave, Spring 2000 

JMU Curriculum Development Grant, Summer 1999  (Development of course in
          creative non-fiction)

CMM Grant 1999 for development of on-line creative writing journal for JMU students

JMU Curriculum Development Grant, Summer 1995 (Image and text
          database development for English 236)

Pushcart Nomination for “Love Letter from the Lonely Middle”, 1995

Madison Institute grant, 1991-92, to develop and teach World War I and
          Modern Consciousness

JMU Faculty Development Leave, Spring 1990

First place winner, 1989 Virginia Prize for Fiction, for Las Golondrinas and Other Stories

Residency, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire, July-August, 1989

JMU Curriculum Development Grant, for development of course and materials
          for Contemporary American Literature, summer 1988

JMU Research Grant, for work in twentieth-century British autobiography, summer 1986

Thomas J. Watson Fellow, for travel to India, France, and Mexico, 1974

Publications:
Criticism 
“Changing Trains:  Metaphors of Transfer in Willa Cather.”  Revised for Cather Studies.

“Willa Cather, the Nabi of Red Cloud.”  In press.  Willa Cather and Aestheticism. 
          Fairleigh Dickinson UP. 

“’Gone out is part of sanity’:  Reading Ivor Gurney’s Shell Shock”.  Journal of the
          Ivor Gurney Society.  13 (2007): 175-192.

"The Ship We Come Over On: Fact, Image, Myth, and the Self in American
          Immigration.”  Immigration, Assimilation, Cultural Identity: Conference
          Proceedings.  CD-ROM.  Harrisonburg, VA:  James Madison University, 2007.
 
 “Getting It Right by Getting It Wrong: Maya Lin’s Misreading of Edwin Luytens
          Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.”  Crossings: A Counter-Disciplinary Journal
          7 (2004/2005): 47-69.

“The Berles Position Military Cemetery, 1917-1918: An Essay on Margins and
          Memory."  Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History,
          and Science 12:1/2 (2005): 161-187.

"Character, Compromise, and Idealism in Willa Cather's Gardens."  Cather Studies
          5: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination.  Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 2003: 291-307. 

"The undiscovered country from whose bourn": William Shakespeare and Joseph
          Conrad in Frederic Manning's The Middle Parts of Fortune.  Precursors
          and Aftermath.   I. 1 (2000): 78-94.

"One More Reason We Can't Stop Tugging Over Raymond Carver's Body." 
          Q. W. E. R. T. Y. 9. Pau: Université de Pau, 1999: 149-155.  

"Fascism, Phoria, and the Symbolic Destiny of Abel Tiffauges."  The Journal of
          Narrative Techique  22.2 (Spring 1992): 105-13.

"Raymond Carver and the Menace of Minimalism."  Rpt. in Raymond Carver: A Study
          of the Short Fiction.  Ed. Ewing Campbell.  Boston: Twayne, 1992.

"The Garden and the Self in Great War Autobiography."  a/b: Auto/biography Studies
          5.2 (Fall 1990): 140-51.

"The Edge of Night: Figures of Change in Henry Green's Concluding."  Twentieth-
          Century Literature  36.1 (1990): 10-22.

"Raymond Carver and the Menace of Minimalism."  CEA Critic.  52.1-2 (Fall 1989-
          Winter 1990): 62-73.

"Self-Effacement as Revelation: Narration and Art in Anthony Powell's A Dance to
          the Music of Time."  The Journal of Modern Literature.  15.4 (Spring 1989): 519-29.

"Cryptic Allusions and the Moral of the Story: The Case of Joseph Conrad's 'The
          Secret Sharer'."   The Journal of Narrative Technique  17.1 (1987): 115-30.

"'The Calm,' 'A Small, Good Thing,' and 'Cathedral': Raymond Carver and the
          Rediscovery of Human Worth."  Studies in Short Fiction 23.3 (1986): 287-96.

"Missing the Train: Raymond Carver's Sequel to John Cheever's 'The Five-Forty-
          Eight'."  Studies in Short Fiction 22.3 (1985): 345-347.

Essays
"Where Faith Comes From." Rubber City. 1.1. (2001): 55-66.

“Daily Miracles: Teaching Creative Writing in the Age of Complacency.”  Gardy Loo
          2.1 (October 1997): 3-4, 21-23.

"Love Letter from the Lonely Middle."  The Georgia Review.  48.2 (Summer 1994):
          225-238. 

Fiction
"What You Can See in PA."  New Virginia Review.  8 (1991): 42-53.

"A Practical Problem."  The American Literary Review 1.1 (1990): 21-32.

"The Girl Next Door."  In Earnest.  2.1 (1989): 1-18.

"Las Golondrinas."  Shenandoah.  39.2 (1989): 32-50.

"Rita."  In Earnest 1.1 (1987): 36-45.

"Small Comfort." The Iowa Review 16.1 (1986): 73-82.

"The Most Beautiful Sister in the World."  The Antietam Review 1986: 19-25.

"First Principles."  Empty Shelves 2.1 (Fall/Winter, 1985-86): 13-18.

"Honesty."  Story Quarterly 20 (1985): 61-66.

"The Coldest Winter Ever."  New America 5.1 (1984): 26-31.

"Brewster Lake."  Conceptions/Southwest 5 (1983): 52-55.

"This Little Piggy."  Conceptions/Southwest 2 (1979): 37-43.

"Papa and I Polish the Comet."  Iowa Journal of Literary Studies 1.1 (1977): 133-55.

The Gravedigger.  [novella] Appleton: In the Shade, 1971.

Poetry
"In Detroit" and "Mission Statement."  In Earnest 1.2 (1988): 34-35.

"Topography."  Reprinted in Keener Sounds.  Stanley Lindberg and Stephen Corey,
          eds.  Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.

"Topography."  Reprinted in The Georgia Review: Fortieth Anniversary
          Poetry Retrospective 40.3 (1987): 662.

"For Lovers Whose Addresses I Cannot Find," "Elegy for a Naturalist," and
          "The Earthquake at San Xavier."  The Louisville Review 20 (Spring 1986): 32-34.

"Summer Night," "Chamber Music," and "Cat's Binge."  Akros Review  11 (1985): 11-14.

"Topography."  The Georgia Review 37.3 (1983): 305.

"Nostalgia."  Conceptions/Southwest 5 (1983): 65.

"The Manitoulin Before the Squall."  The Lake Superior Review 10  (1979): 26.

"Poeme I."  Tropos 3 (1970): 18.

"My Purple Crayon." The Maglet (New Delhi, 1963): np.

Reviews and Miscellaneous
Dream, Death, and the Self.  J. J. Valberg.  Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.  Bridges:
          An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science
          14: 3-4 (2008): 379-384.

Forgiving Dr. Mengele.  Bob Hercules and Cheri Pugh.  VHS.  First Run Features,
          2006. Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History,
          and Science 14:1-2   (2007): 183-185.

Breaking Through: Essays, Journals, and Travelogues of Edward Ricketts. Katharine
          A. Rodger.Berkeley: U California P, 2006.  Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal
          of Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science 14:1-2 (2007): 156-159.

“The Things They Carried.”  Tim O’Brien.   Montpelier (Fall 2004): 15-16.

"Shellshock." In History in Dispute, Volume 9: World War I, Second Series. 
          Dennis Showalter, ed.  Columbia, SC: Manly, 2002.

Time and Anthony Powell: A Critical Study.  Robert Selig.  Journal of Modern
          Literature19:3/4 (1996): 516-517.

Reminiscent Scrutinies: Memory in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time.
          L. A. Frost. Journal of Modern Literature 18:2/3 (1995): 310-311.

Merchants of Hope: British Middlebrow Writers and the First World War, 1919-1939.
          Rosa Maria Bracco.   South Central Review  11.4 (Winter 1994): 62-64.

Translator, with Jacqueline Berben-Masi:  Arlette Bouloumie, "Writing and
          Modernism: Michel Tournier's Friday."  Style 26.3 (Fall 1992): 447-56.

"Andre Dubus," "Timothy Mo," and "Tobias Wolff."  Contemporary Novelists.  London:
          St. James Press, 1992.
 
"W. H. Auden,"  "William Gass," "Galway Kinnell," "Minimalism," and "World War
          I."  Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. George Perkins, ed.  New
          York: Harper and Row, 1991.

"The Ethics of Fiction."  Essay review of Wayne Booth's The Company We
          Keep.  University of Hartford Studies in Literature.  21.1 (1989): 45-47.

Recent Papers and Other Public Presentations
“New Kind of Hero: Football and the Recasting of Manhood in Early Twentieth-Century
          Mid-America.” East Meets West conference.  James Madison University. 
          25-26 March 2010.

“Was There a Powell Generation?”  Invited lecture at 5th Biennial Anthony
          Powell Conference.  Georgetown University,  10-12 September 2009.

“Changing Trains:  Willa Cather’s Chicago.”  Willa Cather Conference, UI Chicago,
          23-25 June 2009.

“Freedom and Endless Exile in Hannah Arendt.”  The Space Between
          Conference.  Northwestern University.  13-14 June 2008.

“The Cultural Construction of Psychiatric Injury in the Twentieth Century.”  Conference
          on War and Peace: The Eternal Swing.  James Madison University.  3-4 April 2008.

“Kitsch, Modernity, and the Deathworks.”  Keynote lecture.  JMU EGO conference,
          April 2008.

"Ivor Gurney's Shellshock."  Conference on Ivor Gurney.  Cambridge University. 
          8-9 September 2007.

"How Shellshock Became PTSD."  The Space Between Conference.   United States
          Naval Academy.  7-9 June 2007.

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