In addition to their teaching duties, faculty members across The University of Tulsa’s Kendall College of Arts & Sciences are hard at work researching and publishing. The 2023-24 academic year has already seen several faculty publications from research on method acting to debut novels, to name just a few.
“Imagining the Method” by Assistant Professor of Media Studies and Film Studies Justin Rawlins
Rawlins’ recently published book, “Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance,” traces the conditions under which method acting was interpreted and how that idea (what Rawlins calls “methodness”) has taken on outsized importance in popular culture. The book shines a light on the cultural politics of method acting and assumptions about race, gender, and screen actors that inform the ways we think and talk about performers and performances.
His research looks at the ideological work of screen texts as they radiate out of the culture industries and vie for our attention and understanding. His research interests include reception and audience studies, media history, stardom and celebrity, cultural history, performance studies, and media production.
“The Extinction of Irena Rey” by Presidential Professor of English & Creative Writing Jennifer Croft
“The Extinction of Irena Rey” follows eight translators searching for a world-renowned author who has gone missing. As the translators search for the beloved author through a primeval Polish forest, they learn about secrets and deceptions that they are not prepared for and grow increasingly paranoid, threatening not only their work but the fate of Rey.
Croft will celebrate her new book with TU’s Oklahoma Center for Humanities and Provost George Justice at 7 p.m. March 12. The center is partnering with Magic City Books to offer copies of Croft’s new book to visitors during the event, and The Tulsa Artist Fellowship will provide refreshments at the reception.
Croft received the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, and a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her areas of expertise include fiction, literary translation, and world literature.
“A Marsh Island” by Sarah Orne Jewett, edited and with an introduction by Assistant Professor of English Don James McLaughlin
McLaughlin has published a scholarly edition of Jewett’s 1885 novel, “A Marsh Island,” with Penn Press. Called one of “the best two novels of the summer” by Overland Monthly the year it came out, the new edition recently hit No. 1 on Oklahoma’s bestseller list for fiction. McLaughlin also recently published an essay titled “An Idle Criticism: Whitman as Disability Theorist in ‘How I Get Around at 60 and Take Notes'” in the Walt Whitman Handbook published by Oxford University Press.
McLaughlin is an assistant professor of 19th-century American literature in the Department of English & Creative Writing. His scholarship focuses on 18th- and 19th-century American literary movements, medical humanities, queer health, disability narratives, and more.