I am interested in a variety of American and international culture, from early twentieth century literature to contemporary film and popular culture. What coheres my work is an interest in links between different cultural forms, politics, and social change. I have just finished a book on the 1993 film Falling Down and the controversies it ignited. My main current project is a monograph on the American writer Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), focusing on the relationship between novels such as Sister Carrie, The Financier, and An American Tragedy, and Dreiser’s lifetime of political activism on behalf of the underprivileged in America. I also have a research interest in textual and scholarly editing, through my work as General Editor of the Theodore Dreiser Edition, which produces scholarly editions of Dreiser’s work from archival sources. Forthcoming volumes include the 1912 novel The Titan, and a collection of Dreiser’s literary, film and drama criticism which I am co-editing.
Research Supervision
I have supervised PhDs on American popular music (blues and rap/hip-hop), cultures of bodybuilding, and the 'white (racial) Atlantic' in British and American cinema. I am currently supervising projects on representations of business in British and American film, on the American novelist Theodore Dreiser, and on London as a transatlantic cultural contact zone.