43925 Afton Terrace
Ashburn, VA 20147-3339
E-mail: rnanian@gmu.edu
EDUCATION
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Ph.D. in English, summa cum laude, with a concentration in Literary
Studies, December, 2000
The International
Yeats School
Sligo, Ireland
Summer program, 1997
Salem State
College (now Salem State University)
Salem, Massachusetts
M.A. in English, summa cum laude, with concentrations in both literature
and creative writing, 1995. Comprehensive Examinations in American Romanticism
(with distinction), 17th Century British Literature (with distinction), The
Victorian Novel, and Arthurian Literature
Master’s Writing Project: Call It in the Air, a play
Simon’s
Rock College (now Bard College at Simon’s Rock)
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
B.A. in Social Science, 1984
DISSERTATION
The Sigh and the Scream: The Poetics of Kenosis and Plerosis
Directors: Ihab Hassan and James Sappenfield
My dissertation explores the concepts of kenosis and plerosis (emptying and
overfilling) as aesthetic values and sources of sublime experience in poetry
from the Romantic era through Modernism. The first half delineates and explains
my critical approach, while the remainder applies it to the poetry of the
English Romantics, Edgar Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot,
and Wallace Stevens.
PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCES
Plerosis/Kenosis: Poetic Language and its Energies. New York: Peter
Lang, 2012. 286 pages plus index.
Contributor, Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies,
2007-2012 (on-line reviews of recent scholarship in Romanticism)
Contributed essay, “‘Too Much of Articulation’: Whitman’s
Long Retreat,” and participated in a seminar panel on “Interpreting
the Shifting Texts of Walt Whitman and/or Emily Dickinson,” Association
of Literary Scholars and Critics Conference, October, 2008.
“Positive Ambiguity: or, Why Keats’s ‘Lamia’ Did Not
Become a Fragment,” published in Prism(s): Essays in Romanticism
(the journal of the International Conference on Romanticism) 15 (2007). Republished
as “Positive Ambiguity: The Case of Keats” in On Theorizing
Romanticism and Other Essays on the State of Scholarship Today, ed. Larry
H. Peer, Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.
“Pursuing the Plerotic Sublime: Romantic Poetry and the Failure of Language”
(expanded version of talk given below) published in Romanticism: Comparative
Discourses, ed. Diane Hoeveler and Larry H. Peer, Ashgate Press, 2006.
Delivered Paper, “Pursuing the Plerotic Sublime: Romantic Poetry and
the Failure of Language,” International Conference on Romanticism
— November, 2003 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Delivered Paper, “Wordsworth and the Problems of Memory,” International
Conference on Romanticism — November, 2002 (Tallahassee, Florida)
Chaired Panel, “Nations and Civil Liberties,” American Conference
on Romanticism — November, 1999 (Bloomington, Indiana)
Delivered response, “Preserving Our Profession through Pleasure,”
to a paper by Dr. Richard Ohmann at a forum on the future of English departments
at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies — November, 1998 (Milwaukee,
Wisconsin)
Contributed research to a series of three articles by Dr. William Halloran
in the Yeats Annual on the relationship between Sharp/Macleod and
W. B. Yeats. A full edition of the letters of Sharp/Macleod, a project on
which I worked for a full year, is available at The William Sharp Archive,
http://ies.sas.ac.uk/cmps/Projects/Sharp/index.htm.
Delivered presentation, “Prepared Peer Response,” at “Those
Who Can Teach!”: The Preparing Future Faculty to Teach Composition Conference,
Marquette University — December, 1997
Contributed plot synopsis of Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man
for McGill Masterplots, 1997
PROFESSIONAL
EXPERIENCE
Term Assistant Professor, George Mason University, 2005-present (Visiting
Assistant Professor, 2003-2005; Adjunct Professor 2000-2003)
Courses designed and taught: Dimensions of Writing and Literature
(ENGH305), Advanced Composition for the Humanities (ENGH302H), Western
Literary Masterworks (ENGL203), Texts and Contexts: Literature of War (ENGH202 and ENGH 499), Texts and Contexts: Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson (ENGL202), Texts and Contexts:American Novels (ENGH202), Reading
and Writing About Text (ENGL201). Other course taught: EdiT: Enhanced
Digital Text (ENGL209).
Graduate Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1997-1999
Courses designed and taught: Introduction to British Literature: Romanticism
through Modernism (350-222), American Novels (350-263). Other
courses taught: College Composition: Argument and Inquiry (350-102)
(co-designed), Introduction to College Composition (350-101).
Coordinator of Communication Skills, Salem State College, 1995-1996
Directed support services in English for ESL and developmental students; trained
and supervised tutors; developed and taught a new, intensive six-week summer
English component for at-risk incoming freshman; conducted support classes
in literature and composition.
ACADEMIC
SERVICE
Coordinator, The Classical Presence (formerly Ancient Studies/Modern Frames),
Mason Topics, George Mason University, 2002-2003. Supervised division of learning-community
type linked-courses program for first- and second-year students. Also taught
within program, 2002-07
George Mason University
Adjunct Faculty Committee, 2000-01
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Literary Studies Advisory Committee, 1998-1999
AWARDS
George Mason University: Recognized for excellence in teaching general education
courses, 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2013
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship
for 1999-2000; passed preliminary examinations for Ph.D. with distinction,
1999; Frederick J. Hoffman Award (departmental award for best graduate student
essay) runner-up 1997, 1998, and 2000
International Yeats School, Sligo, Ireland: scholarship to attend summer program,
1997
Salem State College: Academic Excellence Award 1993, 1994, and 1995; Literary
Criticism Forum (departmental award for best graduate student essay) First
Prize, 1995; Literary Criticism Forum, Second Prize, 1994
PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS
Association of Literary Scholars and Critics
North American Society for the Study of Romanticism
International Conference on Romanticism
Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society