- 9030F Haley Center
- (334) 844-9079
- Tuesday 4:00-5:30
- Wednesday by appointment
- Thursday 4:00 - 5:30
James Emmett Ryan
Jim Ryan’s primary teaching and research fields are in early American Literature and interdisciplinary American Studies. In particular, he has been looking at how American writers and literary cultures have been shaped by transformative historical forces such as religion, politics, technology, and commercial media. A focus on the role of media in the representation of religious life led to his recent book, Imaginary Friends: Representing Quakers in American Culture, 1650-1950 (University of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming). In that project, religious identity formation and transnational attitudes about minority American religious values are central concerns that come to light through his examination of pamphlets, biographies, histories, novels, songs, and cinema.
Guided by a keen interest in other topics such as the politics of disability and authorship, Herman Melville’s fiction, 19th century American Catholic literary culture, modern architecture, and New Journalism, he has published essays and reviews in American Quarterly, American Literary History, Religion and American Culture, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, The Journal of Modern Literature, American Literature, Early American Literature, and the Encyclopedia of Alabama. For a list of his publications in journals and essay collections, click here.
Students working with Professor Ryan have written on a wide range of subjects in early and contemporary American studies, including mesmerism and health in the work of Margaret Fuller, cinematic representations of the nuclear age, visual iconography of the modern American military, archetypal analysis of Henry Thoreau’s writings, family and gender identity in 19th century American bestsellers, queer theory applied to the novels of Henry James, Quaker discourse in 18th century novels by Charles Brockden Brown, religion and family life in the Oneida perfectionist community, racial identity in early 20th century Southern fiction by Welty and Faulkner, and the complexities of ritual sacrifice in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. For his work with undergraduate and graduate students at AU, he received the College of Liberal Arts Early Career Teaching Award (2004).
Representative Publications
- Click here for c.v.
- Imaginary Friends: Representing Quakers in American Culture, 1650-1950. Studies in American Thought and Culture. General editor Paul S. Boyer. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.