David Banash
Department of English
Western
Illinois University
217 Simpkins
d-banash@wiu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Associate Professor of English (tenured), Western Illinois University, 2003 to the present.
Ph.D. English, The University of Iowa, 2003.
M.A. English,
Colorado State University, 1995.
B.A. English and Philosophy,
Saint Ambrose University, 1993.
“Writing Through the Real: Twentieth-Century Literary Collage.” Director, Rudolf Kuenzli.
Contemporary Literature, Film, Popular Culture, Cultural Studies, Media Theory, Experimental and Avant-Garde Forms, Aesthetics.
“Collage and Popular Culture.” (forthcoming from Duke in Collage as Cultural Practice: an Anthology 2010).
“Secret Dictionaries: The Collages of William King Davies.” Trickhouse 1.2 (Fall 2008): 9 pars. <http://www.trickhouse.org/guestcurator/banash&king.html>.
“Brion Gysin.” Beat Culture: Lifestyle, Icons, and Impact. Ed. William T. Lawlor. New York: ABC-CLIO, 2005. 142.
“From Advertising to the Avant-Garde: Rethinking the Invention of Collage.” Postmodern Culture. 14.2 (2004): 38 pars. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v014/14.2banash.html>.
“The Blair Witch Project: Technology, Repression, and the Evisceration of Mimesis.” Nothing That Is: Millennial Cinema and the Blair Witch Controversies. Eds. Jeffrey Weinstock and Sarah Higley. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004. 111-24.
“Introduction: The Ironies of Suburban Studies.” The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. 1.3 (2003): 1-10. (co-authored with Anthony Enns).
“Writers and Radicals: Selections from the ‘Craft, Critique, Culture Conference.’” Iowa Review. 32.1 (2002): 62-63. (co-authored with Anthony Enns).
“Activist Desire, Cultural Criticism, and the Situationist International.” Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 1.2 (2002): 33 pars. <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/021/Activist.htm>.
“Ferus.” Rev. of Ferus by Roberta Bernstein, Kirk Varnedoe, Gagosian Gallery Staff. PopMatters. 15 August 2009. 16 pars. <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/109212-ferus-by-roberta-bernstein-kirk-varnedoe/>.
“It's All Too Beautiful.” Rev. of Beauty: The Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Dave Beech. PopMatters. 30 July 2009. 23 pars. <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/94917-its-all-too-beautiful/>.
Rev. of The Grid Book by Hannah B. Higgins. PopMatters. 17 Apr. 2009. 20 pars. <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/72698-the-grid-book-by-hannah-g.-higgins/>.
Rev. of Ryan Seacrest is Famous: Stories by Dave Housley. PopMatters. 22 January 2009. 10 pars. <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/70362-ryan-seacrest-is-famous-by-dave-housley/>.
Collection Obsession: William Davies King's "Collections of Nothing" Rev. of Collections of Nothing, by William Davies King. PopMatters. 2008. 15 August 2008. 18 pars. <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/58361/william-davies-kings-collections-of-nothing/>.
“A Natural History of Consumption: The Shopping Carts of Julian Montague.” Rev. of The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague. Postmodern Culture. 18.2 (2008): 7 pars. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v018/18.2.banash.html>.
“Globalizing William S. Burroughs.” Rev. of Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization, eds. Davis Schneiderman and Philip Walsh. Postmodern Culture. 16.2 (2006): 7 pars. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v016/16.2banash.html>.
Rev. of Virtual Geographies: Cyberpunk and the Intersection of Postmodernism and Science Fiction, by Sabine Heuser. Paradoxa. 20 (2005): 290-95.
Rev. of Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, by Delores Hayden. Utopian Studies. 16.2 (2005): 280-83.
Rev. of The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies, ed. Michael Bérubé. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 5.1 (2005): 5 pars. <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/051/banash.shtml>.
Rev. of Jennifer Government: a Novel, by Max Barry. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 4.2 (2005): 3 pars. <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/BReviews/revJennifer.htm >.
“Reading Baudrillard.” Rev. of The Vital Illusion, by Jean Baudrillard; Simulacrum America: The U.S.A. and the Popular Media, eds. Elisabeth Kraus and Caroline Auer; Reading Simulacra: Fatal Theories for Postmodernity, by M. W. Smith. Science Fiction Studies. 89.1 (2003): 123-29.
Rev. of The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso in Paris, 1957-1963, by Barry Miles. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 2.2 (2002): 5 pars. <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/BReviews/revBeatHotel.htm>.
Rev. of The Dark Fields: a Novel, by Alan Glynn. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 2.2 (2002): 3 pars. <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/BReviews/revDarkFields.htm>.
“Intoxicating Class: Cocaine at the Multiplex.” Rev. of Traffic, dir. Steven Soderbergh; Blow, dir. Ted Demme. Postmodern Culture. 12.1 (2001): 7 pars. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v012/12.1banash.html>.
“Selling Surveillance: Privacy, Anonymity, and VTV.” Rev. of Survivor, prod. Mark Burnett; Big Brother, CBS 2000. Postmodern Culture. 11.1 (2000): 9 pars. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v011/11.1.r_banash.html>.
“The Blair Witch Project: Technology, Repression, and the Evisceration of Mimesis.” Rev. of The Blair Witch Project, dir. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Postmodern Culture. 10.1 (1999): 10 pars. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v010/10.1.r_banash.html>. Reprinted in Nothing That Is: Millennial Cinema and the Blair Witch Controversies. Eds. Jeffrey Weinstock and Sarah Higley. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004. 111-24.
“The Line, The Ladder, and the Lamp: The Art of Sarah Sze.” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference. New Orleans, Louisiana, 10 Apr. 2009.
“Melancholy Orders and Violent Aesthetics: The Dialectics of Collecting.” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference. San Francisco, California, 13 Mar. 2008.
"Unnatural History: Urban Field Guides and Profane Illumination" English Graduate Organization Annual Conference. Western Illinois University, Macomb. 10 Nov. 2007.
"Ready-made Culture: Newspapers, Advertising, and the Avant-Garde," Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Annual Lecture. Western Illinois University, Macomb, 19 Apr. 2006.
“Ant Farm at the Wheel: Readymades, Nostalgia, and Criticism.” Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference. Atlanta, Georgia, 13 Apr. 2006.
“Writing Through the Real: Collage and the Material World.” Collage as Cultural Practice. The Obermann Humanities Symposium. The University of Iowa, Iowa City. 26 Mar. 2005.
William S. Burroughs and the Beats (session chair). Collage as Cultural Practice. The Obermann Humanities Symposium. The University of Iowa, Iowa City. 26 Mar. 2005.
“When I Am Open: the Anti-Monumental Art of Brion Gysin.” & Now Festival of Contemporary Writing. Notre Dame University, South Bend. 6 Apr. 2004.
“Pay Back the Red You Stole: Critical Art and Postwar Mass Media.” Department of English Faculty Colloquium. Western Illinois University, Macomb. 6 Apr. 2004.
“Writing the Readymade: Literary Collage and the Material Text.” The University of Iowa Center for the Book. The University of Iowa, Iowa City. 11 Nov. 2003.
“Reading Postmodernism: The Corrections, the Novel, and No-Brow Culture.” Craft, Critique, Culture: An Interdisciplinary conference on Writing in the Academy. The University of Iowa, Iowa City. 6 Feb. 2003.
“Realism, Authenticity, and the Rise of Reality TV.” James F. Jakobsen Graduate Forum. The University of Iowa, Iowa City. 30 Mar. 2001.
Writers on Campus: Inaugural International Video Seminar (panelist). The University of Iowa; Princeton University; The University of East Anglia; The University of Bangor. 7 Feb. 2001.
"Aesthetic Politics and Instrumental Advocacy: Marinetti, Benjamin and the Problems of Sense." Rethinking the Avant-Garde: Between Politics and Aesthetics. The University of Notre Dame. 15 Apr. 2000.
“Benjamin, the Flâneur, and the Specificity of Desire.” James F. Jakobsen Graduate Forum. The University of Iowa, Iowa City. 12 Apr. 2000.
Review Board. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/>. 2002 to the present.
Review Board Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. <www.uiowa.edu/~ijcs>. 2004 to the present.
Editor. Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. 2001-03. Established a peer-review board, co-wrote CFPs, edited the Suburbia special issue, solicited and edited articles from leading scholars around the world, developed institutional subscriptions and raised funds.
Conference co-founder and co-director. Craft, Critique, Culture: An Interdisciplinary conference on Writing in the Academy. 2000-02. <www.uiowa.edu/~c3conf>.
Director of Graduate Studies in English. Western Illinois University. 2009-2011.
Chair Search Committee. Western Illinois University. 2009-2010.
Undergraduate Committee. Western Illinois University. Spring, 2009.
Chair. Core Curriculum Revision Committee. Western Illinois University. 2009-2010.
Speakers Committee. Department of English. Western Illinois University. 2007-2010.
American Fiction Search Committee. Department of English. Western Illinois University. 2007-2008.
Co-Chair. Modernist Search Committee. Department of English. Western Illinois Univesity. 2006-2007.
Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Sciences Committee, 2005-2006. On this College of Arts and Sciences committee, I helped write the proposal for a new, interdisciplinary Bachelors degree.
Faculty Council Representative. Collage of Arts and Sciences, Western Illinois University. 2005-08. Represent the department of English to the faculty and Deans of the college of arts and Sciences.
Executive Committee. Department of English. Western Illinois University. 2005.
Chair. Undergraduate Literature Major Review Committee. Department of English, Western Illinois University. 2004-07. Coordinated the wholesale revision of our undergraduate literature major.
Program Review Committee. Department of English. Western Illinois University. 2003-04. The committee evaluated the curriculum and revised the program goals.
Program Associate. General Education Literature Program. The University of Iowa, 2001-02. Worked with faculty in designing and teaching orientation programs for new TAs.
Professional Development Program Co-Leader. Department of Rhetoric. The University of Iowa. 1998-99. Worked with faculty teaching pedagogy and parxis for new GAs.
Faculty Summer Stipend. Western Illinois University, 2005.
Ballard-Seashore Dissertation Fellowship. 2002-03.
Rudolf Kuenzli. Professor. Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature. The University of Iowa. Rudolf-kuenzli@uiowa.edu.
Joan Livingston-Webber, Chair, Department of English, Western Illinois University. livingston-webber@wiu.edu
David Boocker. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Formerly Chair of the Department of English, Western Illinois University (2002-2007). dboocker@unomaha.edu..
Penelope Kelsey. Associate Professor. Department of English. University of Colorado at Boulder. Penelope.Kelsey@Colorado.edu
Adalaide (Dee) Morris. Professor. Department of English. The University of Iowa. Dee-morris@uiowa.edu.
David Wittenberg. Associate Professor. Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature. The University of Iowa. David-wittenberg@uiowa.edu.
Anne L. Schnarr. “Forms of Terror: Words, Images, and Terrorism in the Novels of Kathy Acker and Don DeLillo.” Thesis. Western Illinois Univestiy, 2009.
Bridgette Parsons. “Unifying Contradictions: American Nationalism in the Popular Culture and Literature of the Vietnam War.” Thesis. Western Illinois Universtiy, 2008.
Erin E. Moore. “The Dead Speak: A Dialectic Analysis of Shopping Malls and the Postwar American Consumer.” Thesis. Western Illinois University, 2006.
Ellen Donaghy. “The X Factor: Representing Generation X in Popular Culture and Media.” Thesis. Western Illinois University, 2005.
ENG 500, Introduction to Graduate Studies
(1 Section).
An intensive overview of the history of English as a
discipline, contemporary theoretical approaches to literature and
culture, and research methods.
ENG 537, Twentieth Century American Fiction
(2 Sections).
An investigation of American fiction contextualized
by theories of aesthetics and popular culture.
ENG 610, Seminar: Postmodern Literature,
Culture, and Theory (2 sections).
A rigorous investigation of
postmodern literature, this course emphasizes how novelists use
science-fiction and fantasy to engage and critique postwar culture.
Annette Glotfelty. “Celebratory Ekphrasis in the Novels of Don DeLillo.” Western Illinois Universtiy, 2008.
Bridget Dennehy. “Examining Approaches to Novels Taught in High School.” Western Illinois University, 2008.
Laura A. Pfeiffer. “Wall Paper and Five Stringed Guitars: A Cubist Approach to William Carlos Williams's Spring and All.” Western Illinois University, 2008.
ENG 199, Introduction to Literary Studies
(6 sections).
This courses emphasizes formalist approaches to
reading and writing about literature.
ENG 201, Introduction to Fiction (4
sections).
This course provide a writing intensive introduction to
the world of fiction through in an investigation of popular genres.
ENG 206, American Literature and Popular
Culture (2 sections).
This courses investigates both literature
that takes popular culture as its subject and literature that is
popular culture.
ENG 238, Introduction to American
Literature (4 sections).
In this one-semester survey of American
literary history, I emphasize the role of literature in shaping
popular images of America and American Identity.
ENG 290, Introduction to Film (8
Sections).
This introduction focuses on film forms, genres, and
the Hollywood tradition of filmmaking.
ENG 299, Critical Methods of Reading and
Writing (6 Sections).
This methods course for English majors
concentrates on theoretical approaches to interpretation and
formalist modes of criticism.
ENG 334,
Twentieth-Century American Literature. (2 Sections).
This course
explores twentieth-century literature through twelve complete works
by major American authors in different genres and decades.
ENG 338, Studies in American Fiction II (2
sections).
This course explores the ways in which the themes and
forms of the novel have been transformed by mass media, two world
wars, the Cold War, the struggles of the counter-culture, an
increasing awareness of the politics of identity, and an economy of
consumption and information.
ENG 395, Film and Literature (1
Section).
In this course we will strive to understand differences
of sense ratios, perception and meaning as we compare the forms of
cinema, the novel, the drama, the fairy tale, and the graphic novel.
We will learn how to read formally, moving beyond narrative and
mastering a language to describe the literary and technological forms
that produce meaning and, above all, feeling.
ENG 406, Senior Project (5 sections). This courses helps students transition from their undergraduate career to the job market or graduate school. Students prepare and workshop a writing portfolio, a grad school application, or a résumé and cover letter for a job application. Additionally, they write a substantial essay that helps frame the large themes and meanings of their undergraduate experience.
GH 101, General Honors, Mass Culture and Cultural Studies (3 sections). A writing intensive introduction to cultural studies, this course focuses on mass culture and commodification. Students read primary works by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Frankfurt school theorists, the Birmingham School, and contemporary American cultural critics as they explore the world of fast food, subcultural styles, and the commodification of Christmas.
ENG 8G1, The Interpretation of Literature (5 sections). This required course for all undergraduates focuses on methods of reading and a broad survey of literary genres, periods and interpretative techniques. To explore the complexities of how texts come to mean, the courses emphasizes the role of the reader, traditional close reading, and the influence of politics and the wider culture on interpretation. I have focused on various themes over the semesters, including literature and everyday life, the literature of love, Faust narratives, popular genres, money and monsters.
ENG 8G9, American Lives (3 sections). This courses emphasizes autobiography and American identity. I have concentrated on themes including suburbia, intoxication, political extremism, and the counter-culture.
ENG 008:034, Reading Novels: Postmodern
Fiction (1 section).
This course for undergraduate English majors
combines a broad survey of postmodern literature with an
investigation of postmodern theories of reading. This course engages
debates about the concept of postmodernism and explores different
varieties of postmodern fiction and theory.
ENG 008:084, Topics in Culture and Identity: Suburbia, the Middle Class and Postwar Literature (1 section). This course examines how different groups (working-class writers, women, African Americans, and the white middle-class itself) write about suburbia, using literature to celebrate, question, critique, protest, advocate, and sometimes even transform this ubiquitous environment and ideal.
RHET 010:001, Introduction to Rhetoric (3 sections). This course is the required freshman introduction to academic discourse. It emphasizes critical reading and rhetorical context, the structure of arguments and the form of academic essays and oral presentations. Reading topics include technology, consumerism, race, gender, family, and literacy.
RHET 010:002, Introduction to Research and Argument (3 sections). This course emphasizes formal argument through three essays and three formal speeches over the course of the semester. It helps students learn to create sophisticated papers and oral presentations while researching a social controversy.
RHET 101:003, Accelerated Rhetoric (2 sections). This course for advanced students is a single semester introduction to academic discourse, both written and oral. Requirements include six major assignments, library research, and a final group project. Readings focus on technology and culture in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.