Profiles of Some Current Students

Andrew Ascherl  

Specializations: 20th century Latin American literature and visual culture; contemporary French theory and philosophy; psychoanalysis (Freud/Lacan); anticapitalism.   Areas of Research Interest: I am currently involved in a number of research projects that involve: studying and assimilating the philosophy of Alain Badiou; exploring the political, social, and cultural legacy of the global events of 1968; a critical response to melancholy as the dominant form of Leftist politics; and investigating the status of truth and testimony in late-20th century Spanish American novels.   Academic Background: I hold an M.A. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of New Mexico (2005).   Extra-curricular involvement: I am affiliated with the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture and the Group for the Study of the History of Ideas, and I have contributed written and editorial work to both Umbr(a) and theory@buffalo.

Heidi Bohn

Specializations : law and literature; prison studies; fantastic literature of Germany , Iceland , and the Americans; Film studies; the history of contracts; cognitive science and the emotions

Areas of research interest : Currently writing about “men's studies” with a focus on John Quincy Adams as an early feminist. Also thinking about Eric Santner's work on the animal. Writing a chapter on “the personality of the law.”

Academic Background : BA in Spanish and Government; MA in Comparative Literature (University of Washington); study abroad in South Africa through Howard University; Cornell's School of Criticism and Theory; Fulbright Grant to Iceland (Icelandic Cinema); J.D. (2007); PhD- expected completion 2008.

Extra-Curricular Involvements : Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal; Vice-President/Co-initiator of the “Buffalo Prison Task Force” (teaching legal research and writing to inmates); Buffalo Public Interest Law Program; tutoring program for Somali refugees; boxing.

David Collins [ dbc8@buffalo.edu ]

Specializations: Continental philosophy; 19th-20th century poetry (particularly modernism); Virtue Ethics Academic Background: MA Theory and Criticism - University of Western Ontario BA Honours English/Major Philosophy - University of New Brunswick   I am also co-editor of theory@buffalo #13: The Condition(s) of Possibility and involved with various student groups like the Graduate Student Association and History of Ideas.

Nathan Gorelick

Specializations: 18th century French and British literatures of
excess; 20th century French theory, esp. Artaud, Bataille, Blanchot,
Foucault, Lacan

Areas of Research Interest:  Intersections between sexuality and
death, primarily in the 18th century; the ethics of writing and the
libertine tradition; theories of expenditure and excess; the Marquis
de Sade, Laurence Sterne, Daniel Defoe, Denis Diderot

Academic Background:  BA in Sociology from New York University

Extra-Curricular: co-editor of theory@buffalo issue (Re)Visions of
Excess; president, Department of Comparative Literature Graduate
Student Association; vice president, Group for the Study of the
History of Ideas; assistant debate coach for Harvard University

Nicole M. Jowsey

Specializations: 20th Century European and American Poetry; Philosophy and Literary Theory; Visual Studies
Areas of Research Interest: Ancients and Moderns; Specifically: Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille, Frederich Niezsche, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva; Specific 20th Century Poets: H.D. and Rainer Maria Rilke
Academic Background: I have a BFA in Photography, have published several Exhibition catalog essays for both national and international artists, and have curated several exhibitions at galleries and museums in the Western New York area. My work has been presented at both national and international conferences. I have studied abroad in Berlin, Germany and will be participating in the 2007 Collegium Phaenologicum on "Word and Image".
Extra-Curricular: I am Co-Editor of theory@buffalo issue Aesthetics and Finitude . I have served as President of the Comparative Literature Graduate Student Assoiciation, Senator for the Comparative Literature Graduate Student Association, and Vice President of the Graduate Student Association. I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Faculty Student Association, the Comparative Literature Graduate Student Association, the Graduate Poetics Group and the Graduate British Studies Group. I am also the Director of External Programming at Big Orbit Gallery.

Jieun Kwon [jkwon3@buffalo.edu]
Specialization: Postmodernism; Postcolonialism; 20th-century American Literature.

Bio: I hold an MA in English literature from Rutgers University. Since coming to Buffalo in 2002, I have been working on 1960s American novelists, such as Doctorow, Pynchon, and Norman Mailer.

I am interested in the aesthetics of postmodernism.

Recently Graduated Students

Samuele F. S. Pardini [pardini@buffalo.edu]
Specialization: Comparative literary cultures; American literature and Studies; Italian literature and studies; Popular culture; Literary criticism; Critical theory.

Bio: Before coming to Buffalo in 1997, I studied at the University of Pisa, Italy, where I earned a degree in Letters and Philosophy, and University College Galway, Ireland where I was an Erasmus Student in 1993. In 2000 I received an appointment as lecturer in the Deptartment of Italian Studies at UCLA. At SUNY Buffalo I worked primarily with people from Comparative Literature and English, but I also took classes in Romance Languages and Literatures. The great thing about the Department of Comaprative Literature is that you can do pretty much whatever you think is best for you. I really have had a great time studying here. Indeed, I was lucky enough to be able to work for almost five years with Professor Leslie A. Fiedler, whose series of essays and poems I am also translating into Italian. The first volume came out in the fall of 2004. It is titled Vacanze Romane. Un critico americano a spasso per l'Italia letteraria, (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2004, www.donzelli.it). I have also contributed an article to Racing in the Street. The Bruce Springsteen Reader, ed. June Skinn Sawyers, Preface by Martin Scorsese, (New York: Penguin, 2004, http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_0142003549,00.html).

My dissertation, which I recently completed, is titled The Engines of History. The Automobile in American and Italian Literary Cultures, 1908-1943. It is a thematic study of the car from Futurism to the American Guide Series.

In the fall I will teach Italian and American Studies in the French and Italian Deptment at Vanderbilt University, where I received a one-year appointment.

Michael Baxter-Kauf [mjbaxter@buffalo.edu]
Specialization: Psychoanalysis; Ethics; 20th-century American literature.

Bio: I graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2002.

I am working with Umbr(a) and the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture.

Sorin Radu Cucu [ srcucu@buffalo.edu ]
Specialization: 20th-Century European and American literatures; Philosophy and literary theory; Psychoanalysis; Political theory.

Bio: I am working on the politics of postmodern prose in contemporary French and American fiction. Since arriving in Buffalo, I've taught classes on modernism and the problem of evil in postmodern fiction.

I co-edited the 2004 issue of theory@buffalo on "politics and doxa" and I am currently co-editing the next issue of Umbr(a) on "the incurable."