Not only how long you live (though long is good) but also what you do with the time you've got.

VITA for Richard Keller Simon

Academic Address: Department of English, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California. 93407. Cal Poly Office telephone: 805 756-2475 (voice mail on this number) English Departmen telephone: 805 756 2596 Humanities Program telephone: 805 756 1205 e-Mail: rsimon@calpoly.edu WEB page: http//:www.cla.calpoly.edu/~rsimon

EDUCATION

Stanford University, l97l-l977 Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature, June l977. Dissertation: "Comedy, Suffering, and Human Existence: The Search for a Comic Strategy of Survival from Søren Kierkegaard to Kenneth Burke." Robert Polhemus, director.

University of Michigan, l967-68; M.A. in English, June l968. Arthur Eastman, M. A. director. Concentration in playwriting. University of Michigan, l962-67. B.A. with distinction in English, April l967.

Central High School, Philadelphia Penna. 1958-1962.

EMPLOYMENT

Professor, Department of English, and Chair, Humanities Program, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo California. 1995--to present Associate Professor, Department of English, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo California. l990-1995. Assistant Professor, Department of English, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo California. l988-l990.

Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Texas at Austin, Austin Texas. l978-l986.

Acting Assistant Professor, Department of Literature, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California. l976-78.

Instructor, Humanities Division, Capilano College, North Vancouver, British Columbia. Fall l975.

Teaching Fellow, Department of English, Stanford University, Stanford California. l972-73.

Instructor, Humanities Area, College of General Studies,Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Michigan. l969-7l.

Instructor, Department of English, Northern Michigan University, Marquette Michigan. l968-69

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PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

Trash Culture: Popular Culture and the Great Tradition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.

Trash Culture has been ttranslated into Chinese and has been published in Beijing.

Interviews about the book:

On RADIO: KPFK, Pacifica Radio, Los Angeles, "The Mark Cooper Show," January 2000, and then syndicated by the Nation Magazine to radio stations around the United States during the Winter 2000; KPBS Radio, San Diego, "The Lounge with Dirk Sutro," January 2000; WILL, Urbana Illinois, "The Afternoon Show with Celeste Quinn," May 1,2000. (This interview is archived on the Web site for WILL and "The Afternoon Show." ARTS TODAY on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 2000 (Call in radio program broadcast across Australia). ON THE WEB:Wisdom Radio Network (web radio broadcast), "The New Intimacy with Judith and Jim" (Psychologists from Santa Monica California), March 2000; Rouze.com, a Playboy Magazine Web site, posted May 2000. Interview conducted by Peter Landau..IN PRINT: The Sunday Book Review Section of the Contra Costa (California) Times; The New Times of San Luis Obispo County.Reviews of the book include: The Library Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Review of Books, the New York Times.

The Labyrinth of the Comic: Theory and Practice from Fielding to Freud. Tallahassee Florida: University Presses of Florida/Florida State University Press, l986.

Reviews: by Louis Budd, Duke University, in The South Atlantic Quarterly 86:2, Spring l987, l84-5; by Alistair Duckworth, University of Florida, in Victorian Studies 30:4, Summer l987, 525-526; by Peter M. Briggs, Bryn Mawr College, in Studies in the Novel 20:l, Spring l988, ll6-ll9; by Robert Torrance, University of California at Davis, in Genre 2l:2, Summer l988, 240-243; by James L. Thorson, University of New Mexico, in The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography New Series, ll, l989, V:458.

ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

"Pirandello and the Fictions of Mass Culture," Fictions: Studi sulla narrativita, I: 2002, 41-73. This journal is published in Italy (Pisa and Roma) by the Instituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internationali, MMIII. The editor is Alba Graziana (Universita della Tuscia, Viterbo).

"Much Ado About Friends: What Pop Culture Offers Literature," in The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 10, 2000.

An excerpt from this essay was printed by the New York Times on August 23 2000.

The essay was reprinted in full by the Sydney (Australia) Morning News on

"John Kennedy Toole and Walker Percy: Fiction and Repetition in A Confederacy of Dunces. Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 36 (Spring 1994), 99-116.

"Between Capra and Adorno: West's The Day of the Locust and the Movies of the l930s." Modern Language Quarterly. 54 (December 1993). 513-534.

"Conrad the Philosopher: Nostromo and Intellectual History," Cercles (Centre d'etudes en litterature, linguistique et civilisation de langue anglais, Universite de Rouen), Special Nostromo issue. (January l993). l4l-l52.

"The Formal Garden in the Age of Consumer Culture: A Reading of the 20th Century Shopping Mall," in Mapping American Culture, edited by Wayne Franklin and Michael Steiner, Iowa City: U of Iowa Press, l992. 23l-250. A brief excerpt from this article has been reprinted in the "Mélange" column of The Chronicle of Higher Education 39:27 (March 10, 1993). B-2.

"Euripides and the Enquirer: Reading Supermarket Tragedy," Genre 24 (Spring l991) 63-82.

"Attacks on Humor and Laughter in Twentieth Century Literature," in Whimsy VI, Proceedings of the Sixth Conference, edited by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen, Tempe: Arizona State University, l988. 2l8-2l9.

"Beckett, the Critics, and the Problem of Comedy: A Study of Two Contexts." In Translating Beckett; Beckett Translating edited by Alan Friedman, Charles Rossman, and Dina Sherzer, State College, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, l987. pp. 85-94. Part of this essay has been published as "Beckett, Comedy, and the Critics" in Beckett: Waiting for Godot: A Selection of Critical Essays" edited by Ruby Cohn, London: Macmillan, l987. pp. lll-ll3.

"E. M. Forster's Critique of Laughter and the Comic: The First Three Novels as Dialectic" Twentieth Century Literature 3l (Forster Issue) (Summer/Fall l985) l99-220.

"Dialectical Laughter: A Study of "Endgame' Modern Drama l5 (December l982) 505-5l3.

Reviews of The Art of Laughter by Neil Schaeffer, Discovering the Comic by George McFadden, and Laughing by Norman Holland, in Criticism 24 (Fall l982) 386-389.

"Comedy and History: Review Essay." Studies in the Novel, l3 (Fall l98l) 322-329.

"Advertising as Literature: The Utopian Fiction of the American Marketplace" Texas Studies in Literature and Language 22 (Summer l980) l54-l74.

"Freud's Concepts of Comedy and Suffering," The Psychoanalytic Review 64 (Fall l977) 39l-407.

ACADEMIC PAPERS and PRESENTATIONS:

"Poetry and Music Video" Sacramento City College, September 14 2000.

"Friends and Much Ado About Nothing; Teaching Popular Culture in the Humanities Classroom" at the University of California/California State University Humanities Conference, Huntington Library, San Marino Cal, February 1997. Sponsors: UC Humanities Research Institute, CSU Office of Academic Affairs, and the Huntington Library.

"Literature and Popular Culture: A Proposal for Teaching," at the English Council of the California State University System, Burlingame California, April 1995. Invited address to department chairs, directors of graduate programs, and directors of composition of all 20 campuses of the CSU.

"More's Utopia and history in Nostromo" at the Convention of the Modern Language Association, New York, December l992.

"'The Way of the World' in the Age of Television: Reading 'Knots Landing' as Literature" at the Convention of the Modern Language Association, San Francisco, December l99l.

"Misreading West: The Day of the Locust and the Movies of the l930s," at the Convention of the Modern Language Association, Chicago, December l990.

"The Formal Garden in the Age of Consumer Culture: A Reading of the 20th Century Shopping Mall," at the Convention of the California American Studies Association, San Luis Obispo California, May l990.

"The Philosophy of Assimilation and the Assimilation of Philosophy: Exiles and Emigres in Conrad's Nostromo," at the Convention of the Modern Language Association, Washington D.C., December l989.

"Cosmopolitan Magazine as Literature: Austen, Flaubert, and Wharton in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," at the University of California at Santa Cruz, American Studies Lecture Series, June l989.

"The Book of the Courtier in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: A Reading of Playboy Magazine" at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of American Civilization Colloquium, Philadelphia, October l987.

"Attacks on Humor in Twentieth Century Literature: Bellow, Griffiths, Barnes" at the Sixth International Conference on Humor,World Humor and Irony Membership, Tempe Arizona, April l987.

"After Freud: The Psychoanalytic Study of Humor and Jewish Humor, l9ll-l962" at the Second International Conference on Jewish Humor, New York, June l986.

"Beckett and the Critics" at "Translating Beckett; Beckett Translating," Conference on Beckett at the University of Texas at Austin. March l984. "Comedy and the Fear of Laughter" at the Convention of the Modern Language Association, Los Angeles, December l982.

"Kierkegaard, Comedian," Third International Conference on Humor, Washington D.C., August l982.

"Detachment and Engagement: The Debate over Humor and the Comic in Twentieth Century Criticism." University of Louisville, Eighth Annual Conference on Twentieth Century Literature, Louisville Kentucky, February l980.

" The Ideology of Children's Literature," University College Lecture Series, University of Toronto, January l978

"The Voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise: Meanings in Mass Culture." University College Lecture Series, University of Toronto, January l978.

"The History and Politics of Rock Music," University College Lecture Series, University of Toronto, January l978.

MEDIA:

"Advertising as Religion." A lecture filmed and then televised by NBC News, for the network news program, "Weekend," June 3, l978. "Spend and Ye Shall Be Saved." An interview conducted by Tom Shales, TV editor, for The Washington Post, June 7, l978. Pages B-l and B-2. A follow up on the television appearance.

HONORS AND AWARDS

Scholarship Award, California Polytechnic State University, Spring 2000.

Distinguished Teaching Award, California Polytechnic State University, Spring 1996

California State University Research Funds: State Faculty Support Grants, Summers of l992, l99l, 1990

University Research Institute, University of Texas, Summer l98l

Modern Thought and Literature Graduate Fellowship, Stanford University, l97l-l975

National Defense Education Act Fellowship, University of Michigan, l967-l968

Phi Beta Kappa, University of Michigan, l967

Hopwood Awards in Creative Writing, University of Michigan. first place, major division, playwriting; first place, major division, essay. l967