Research & Innovation

A dazzling collection of stories about how the familiar can suddenly turn strange.A guidebook introduces foreign visitors to a recognizable but dreamlike America, where mirrors are haunted and the Statue of Liberty wears a bowler hat. A department-store supervisor must discipline employees who don't smile enough at customers, but finds himself unexpectedly drawn to the saddest of them all. A woman reluctantly agrees to buy her daughter a robot pet, then is horrified when her little girl chooses an enormous mechanical spider for a companion. The characters in these stories find that the world they thought they knew has shifted and changed, become bizarre and disorienting, and, occasionally, miraculous. Told with absurdist humor and sweet sadness, Viral is about being lost in places that are supposed to feel like home.

That a modern poet ought to be difficult, and that Frost’s poems are not, remains a predisposition that many readers of Frost, if I may judge at least from the behavior of my students, continue to bring to the page.

Golden Handcuffs is among the handful of truly important contemporary literary magazines.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will be used to plan the development of ARCScholar and to form its governance structure. ARCScholar will participate with other grant recipients in creating a system of cooperatives for publishing and sustaining digital editions.

THE TORPEDOING AND SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA ON MAY 7, 1915 CLAIMED 1201 LIVES. COULD THE GREAT SHIP HAVE BEEN SAVED? "Debris, A Novel of Love, War and the Lusitania" holds a mirror up to the turbulent times of World War I, and the critical year 1915. A German U-Boat sinking of the liner "Lusitania" helped bring America into the war against Germany on the British side. The "Lusitania" sailed with close to 2000 passengers and crew, over half of whom would die. Germany's warnings to passengers were largely ignored. Hidden on board were munitions and war supplies for the British army. How did Germany know about this contraband? Spies sealed the ship's fate - and their own as well. The book offers a human tale of courage and conflict, lives shattered and rebuilt, loves formed and lost amid war's debris. PRAISE FOR DEBRIS "A novel about the 1915 sinking of the 'Lusitania,' Debris could be part of the history of that catastrophe. So real are Len Abram's characters, so intertwined are their lives and their parts in the grand scheme of things, they are all wholly believable. The attention to detail is astounding. One minute you are aboard a German U-Boat, hearing all the creaks and groans of a submarine, feeling the tension as the boat lurks unseen, stalking its prey; the next you are in the Ukraine, among communist revolutionaries, and then in America, among capitalists. You follow the innocent Hannah's ordeal trying to escape the Czarist Police and ultimately her spying for German Intelligence in America, and falling fatefully in love. The descriptions aboard the grand liner 'Lusitania' are a vision of the shipboard life. You may feel that you ought to check your ticket. 'Debris' is, in sum, a masterpiece of historical fiction, which you will not want to put down." - Mitch Peeke, co-author, "Lusitania Online," "The Lusitania Story," and "The Lusitania and Beyond: The Life of Commodore William Thomas Turner." " 'Debris' tells a story as explosive as any torpedo. Instead of cold steel, Len Abram brings to life the warm lives and tragic loves of the spies, who sealed the fate of the Lusitania and the passengers to an ocean grave. It is a terrific read, filled with breathtaking suspense and painstaking historical detail." -Adam Pachter, screenwriter and editor of the "Fenway Fiction series of Boston Red Sox anthologies." "History tells a story about the past. 'Debris' combines fiction and history to make the past and the people who lived it alive again. A thoroughly engaging read." - Gary Braver, bestselling and award-winning author of "Tunnel Vision."

Unnatural Narrative: Theory, History, and Practice provides the first extended account of the concepts and history of unnatural narrative. In this book, Brian Richardson, founder of unnatural narrative studies, offers a theoretical model that can encompass antirealist and antimimetic works from Aristophanes to postmodernism. Unnatural Narrative begins with a sustained critique of contemporary narratology, diagnosing its mimetic bias and establishing the need for a more comprehensive account. This new approach results in original theoretical insights into the basic elements of story, such as beginnings, sequencing, temporality, endings, and narrative itself.
 
Applying these theoretical insights, Richardson also provides a compelling alternative view of the history of narrative. He traces a genealogy of unnatural narratives from ancient Greek and Sanskrit works through medieval and renaissance fiction to eighteenth-century and romantic fiction. The study continues through the twentieth century, discussing the unnatural elements of Ulysses and other early twentieth-century texts, and engages with contemporary fiction by offering an alternative account of postmodernism. Unnatural Narrative makes an essential intervention in narrative theory and an important contribution to the history of the novel.

The torpedoing and sinking of the Lusitania on May 7th, 1915 claimed 1201 lives. Could the great ship have been saved? "Debris, A Novel of Love, War and the Lusitania" holds a mirror up to the turbulent times of World War I, and the critical year 1915. A German U-Boat sinking of the liner "Lusitania" helped bring America into the war against Germany on the British side. The "Lusitania" sailed with close to 2000 passengers and crew, over half of whom would die. Germany's warnings to passengers were largely ignored. Hidden on board were munitions and war supplies for the British army. How did Germany know about this contraband? Spies sealed the ship's fate - and their own as well. The book offers a human tale of courage and conflict, lives shattered and rebuilt, loves formed and lost amid war's debris.

Topics include race, gender, sources, environmental sustainability, interdisciplinarity, learning communities, science, epic, pastoral, and reception.

The collection reviews institutional culture surrounding the valuation and publication of digital scholarship.

The recipient of this award will be a member of the community with an exemplary record of sustained service and acknowledged contribution to the quality of life on the campus.