The Asian-American Artist and the Post-Racial Mountain-as-Molehill
Professor Ralph Clare, English, Boise State University
Thursday November 18, 2021 11-12:15 GMCS 333
The author of recent books on David Foster Wallace and Postmodern Fiction and Film, Professor Ralph Clare returns to SDSU (he’s an alum of our undergraduate BA in English and Comparative Literature) from the wilds of Idaho where he works as an Associate Professor of English. His lecture today, focuses on Adrian Tomine’s striking graphic novel SHORTCOMINGS, some of Tomine’s earlier works published in OPTIC NERVE, and the poetry of Langston Hughes—in particular "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Dr. Clare's lecture will include commentary on the supposedly "post-racial age" and the challenges and opportunities that poses for writers / artists of color—and particularly for Tomine, who is working in an industry with a somewhat anemic diversity, "alternative" though it is!
Ralph Clare is Associate Professor of English at Boise State University, specializing in post-45 American literature. He is the author of Fictions Inc.: The Corporation in Postmodern Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture (Rutgers UP, 2014) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace (Cambridge UP, 2018). His latest book project, Metaffective Fiction: Structuring Feeling in Contemporary American Literature, explores the role of emotion and affect in post-postmodern fiction and the neoliberal era in works by David Foster Wallace, Salvador Plascencia, Sheila Heti, Dave Eggers, and Ben Lerner, among others.
Education: Ph.D., English Literature, Stony Brook University (SUNY, Stony Brook); M.F.A., Creative Writing (Fiction), California State University, Long Beach; M.A., English Literature, California State University, Long Beach; B.A., English Literature, San Diego State University. Recent Publications: The Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace (Cambridge UP, 2018) Fictions Inc.: The Corporation in Postmodern Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture (Rutgers University, 2014).
A Public Lecture for Vaxxed and Masked Members of the SDSU Community Brought to you by the fine folks at Comics@SDSU, Amatl Comix, SDSU Press, MALAS & The Cool Kids of English 157 Psychedelic Mirrors!
