"Don't Act": Rediscovering Cold War Culture is an interdisciplinary examination of the cultural cold war and its role in shaping the current relationship between the arts and politics in the United States. Drawing its title from choreographer George Balanchine's single most frequent piece of advice to his dancers ("don't act; just dance"), the book analyzes literature, ballet, film, architecture, and cultural criticism by artists and thinkers such as Balanchine, William Faulkner, Yuri Grigorovich, Stanley Kubrick, Maya Lin, Marianne Moore, Richard Serra, Theodor Adorno, and György Lukács. Readings of individual works are approached both theoretically and historically, with particular attention paid to U.S. cultural diplomacy and federal funding for the arts.

REFEREED PUBLICATIONS

"Making Camp: Go Down, Moses." American Literary History, 19:4 (Winter 2007), 997-1029.

"Conversing with Ourselves: Canon, Freedom, Jazz." American Quarterly, 55:1 (March 2003), 1-28.

"Dancing Through the Cold War: The Case of The Nutcracker." Mosaic, 33:3 (September 2000), 1-17.

"Saving Private Property: Steven Spielberg's American DreamWorks." Representations 71 (Summer 2000), 77-105. Nominated by the Representations board for the 2001 Kovacs Essay Award of the Society for Cinema Studies. Reprinted in Walter Hixson, ed., The American Experience in World War II (Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 2002), 231-260.

"To 'flash white light from ebony': The Problem of Modernism in Jean Toomer's Cane." Twentieth Century Literature, 46:1 (Spring 2000), 1-19.

" 'You have your ma's eyes': Modernity, Narration, and the Feminine in Allen Tate's The Fathers." The Southern Quarterly, 37:3-4 (Spring-Summer 1999), 198-211.

"Pulp Fictions: Reading Faulkner for the 21st Century." The Faulkner Journal, 12:2 (Spring 1997), 69-86.

Chapters in collections

"Performance Anxieties: The A-Literary Companions of American Literary Studies." A Companion to American Literary Studies, edited by Caroline F. Levander and Robert S. Levine. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, forthcoming.

"Unhistoricizing Faulkner." Faulkner's Sexualities: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha 2007, edited by Ann Abadie and Annette Trefzer. Jackson: Univeristy Press of Mississippi, forthcoming.

"William Faulkner: 'an impossibly comprehensive expressivity.' " The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel, edited by Morag Shiach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 178-90.

" 'C'est vraiment dégueulasse': Meaning and Ending in A bout de souffle and If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem."A Companion to William Faulkner, edited by Richard C. Moreland. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007, 65-84.

"I'm Spartacus!" A Companion to Narrative Theory, edited by James Phelan and Peter J. Rabinowitz. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, 484-98.

"Disney's Song of the South and the Birth of the White Negro." American Cold War Culture, edited by Douglas Field. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, 109-27.

"Writing A Fable for America." Faulkner in America: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1998, edited by Donald M. Kartiganer and Joseph Urgo. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001, 82-97.

"Biting the Hand that Writes You: Southern African American Folk Narrative and the Place of Women in Their Eyes Were Watching God." Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts, edited by Anne Goodwyn Jones and Susan V. Donaldson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997, 319-42.

"A Postmodern Absalom, Absalom!, a Modern Beloved: The Dialectic of Form." Unflinching Gaze: Morrison and Faulkner Re-Envisioned, edited by Carol A. Kolmerten, Stephen M. Ross, and Judith Bryant Wittenberg. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997, 181-98.

Essays in journals

"Margaret Garner and the Second Tear." Review essay of Margaret Garner, an opera by Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison. American Quarterly 60:1 (March 2008), 159-171.

"The Great Intermediate." Review essay of The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, by Martin Duberman (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). Salmagundi 157 (Winter 2008), 188-98.

"Posting Yoknapatawpha." Mississippi Quarterly, 57:4 (Fall 2004 special issue: William Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha), 591-618.

"High Art in Low Times." Review essay of The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy During the Cold War, by David Caute (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) and The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders (New York: New Press, 2000). Boston Review, 29:5 (October/November 2004), 37-39 (http://www.bostonreview.net/BR29.5/kodat.html)

"Faulkner and 'Faulkner.' " Review essay of William Faulkner on the Color Line: The Later Novels, by Theresa M. Towner (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), and William Faulkner: Self-Presentation and Performance, by James G. Watson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). American Literary History, 15:1 (Spring 2003), 188-99.

"Confusion in a Dream Deferred: Culture and Context in Teaching A Raisin in the Sun." Studies in the Literary Imagination, 31:1 (Spring 1998 special issue: Cultural Studies and the Pedagogical Imagination), 149-64.

Reviews

Electric Salome: Loie Fuller's Performance of Modernism, by Rhonda K. Garelick (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). Modernism/Modernity, 15:2 (April 2008), 400-01.

Vaganova: A Dance Journey from Petersburg to Leningrad, by Vera Krasovskaya; Vera Siegel, trans. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005). Slavic and East European Journal, 50.3 (Fall 2006), 556-57.

Untitled review of two Sergei Prokofiev ballets choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich released on DVD: The Stone Flower (Bolshoi Ballet Arthaus 101 121, 1990 performance) and Ivan the Terrible (Paris Opera Ballet TDK DVWW-BLITT, 2003 performance). Fanfare, May/June 2006, 272-73.

"An 'Accidental' tale that's difficult by design." Review of Ali Smith's The Accidental (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005). The Baltimore Sun, Sunday, January 15, 2006, F4.

Quiet as it's kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison, by J. Brooks Bouson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000). Modern Fiction Studies, 47:4 (Winter 2001), 1033-35.

GUEST TALKS

"Unhistoricizing Faulkner." Faulkner's Sexualities: The 34th Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, July 25, 2007.

"Posting Yoknapatawpha." University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary, April 27, 2005.

"Reading Art Reading Politics Reading Art: Cold War Cultural Diplomacy and the Problem of Interpretation." Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K., November 24, 2004.

"I'm Spartacus!" American Studies Research Seminar, American Studies Department, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K., October 12, 2004.

" 'I'm Spartacus!'; or, Woof! Woof!" Humanities Colloquium, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, March 2, 1999.

"Writing A Fable for America." Faulkner in America: The 25th Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, July 31, 1998.

AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS

" 'a purity of vocabulary and cleanness of accent': Edwin Denby's Queer Classicism." Seminar on Choreography and Poetics II, American Comparative Literature Association annual convention, Harvard University, March 27-29, 2009.

"Of Flesh and Its Others: Mark Morris's Dido and Aeneas." Seminar on Choreography and Poetics, American Comparative Literature Association annual convention, Princeton University, March 23-26, 2006.

"Reading Politics, Reading Art: Aims and Assumptions." Third International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K., August 2-5, 2005.

"Making Camp: Go Down, Moses." Society for the Study of Narrative Literature annual conference, Burlington, Vermont, April 22-25, 2004.

"Which Spartacus?" Contemporary Narrative Theory conference, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, October 23-25, 2003.

"The Figure in the Carpet: Choreographing the Cold War." American Studies Association annual convention, Hartford, Connecticut, October 16-19, 2003.

" 'From viewers like you': Arts Patronage and the State of/in Ken Burns's Jazz." Modern Language Association annual convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, December 27-30, 2001.

" 'Don't Act': The Cold War Politics of Art." Dean of the Faculty's Lecture Series, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, October 26, 2001.

"The Figure in the Carpet: George Balanchine and the Cold War." Society for Dance History Scholars annual conference, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland, June 21-24, 2001.

" 'I'm Spartacus!'; or, Woof! Woof!" Modernist Studies Association conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 12-15, 2000

" 'Some uncertain footwork': Empire, Ethnography, and the Birth of American Modern Dance." American Studies Association annual meeting, Montréal, Canada, October 28-31, 1999.

"Saving Private Property: Steven Spielberg's American DreamWorks." Society for the Study of Narrative Literature annual conference, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 29-May 2, 1999.

"Writing A Fable for America." Faulkner in America: the 25th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, July 26-August 1, 1998.

"A Fable: Faulkner's Sentimental Journey." Society for the Study of Narrative Literature annual conference, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, April 2-5, 1998.

"Black Studies, Cultural Studies, and Postmodern Pedagogy: The Example of A Raisin in the Sun." American Literature Association Symposium on African American Literature, San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico, November 13-16, 1997.

"The Figure in the Carpet: George Balanchine and the Cold War." The Futures of American Studies Conference, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 10-16, 1997.

" 'Just tell me if any of them are right': Time, Narrative, Faulkner, Tarantino." Society for the Study of Narrative Literature annual conference, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, April 3-6, 1997.

"How do you tell the story from the dance? Revising The Nutcracker." Modern Language Association annual convention, Washington, D.C., December 27-30, 1996.

"Beyond the Pale: The Art of Blackness in William Faulkner's 'Carcassone' and 'Black Music.' " Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) annual conference, Providence, Rhode Island, April 28-30, 1995.

" 'You have your ma's eyes': History and the Feminine in The Fathers." Modern Language Association annual conference, New York City, New York, December 27-30, 1992.

" 'I am going to be in pieces': Beloved and the Aims of Modernism." Central New York Modern Language Association annual conference, Cortland, New York, October 20-22, 1991.

SERVICE AS PANEL CHAIR, RESPONDENT,
ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANT

Panel chair: "Faulkner in the 1950s." Modern Language Association annual convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 27-30, 2009.

Seminar leader: "Modern(ist) Dance." Modernist Studies Association annual conference, Montréal, Canada, November 5-8, 2009.

Panel chair: "Caribbean Revolution and the Word." American Studies Association annual convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 11-14, 2007.

Panel chair: "Radio, Oral, and Serial Narratives." Society for the Study of Narrative Literature annual conference, Ottawa, Canada, April 6-9, 2006.

Panel chair: "Classical, Vernacular, High and Low Culture: Music, Dance, and Architecture in America." American Studies Association annual convention, Atlanta, Georgia, November 11-14, 2004.

Roundtable participant: "Teaching/Reteaching/Unteaching Faulkner: A Roundtable Discussion." American Literature Association annual convention, San Francisco, California, May 27-30, 2004.

Panel chair: "Faulkner and Sex." Modern Language Association annual convention, San Diego, California, December 27-30, 2003.

Seminar participant: "Benjamin: Memory, Experience, and the Designs of Modernism." Modernist Studies Association annual conference, Houston, Texas, October 12-15, 2001.

Seminar participant: "Modernism and Jazz." Modernist Studies Association annual conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 12-15, 2000.

Panel chair: "Female Bodies and the National Imaginary." American Studies Association annual meeting, Seattle, Washington, November 19-22, 1998.

Respondent: "Genre Theory at the Millennium." Conference sponsored by Colgate University and Hamilton College, Hamilton and Clinton, New York, September 11-13, 1998.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Twentieth-century U.S. literature, including African American literature; twentieth-century ballet and modern dance; music; film; literary theory and cultural studies.

"Southern Modernists in Black and White: Jean Toomer, Allen Tate, William Faulkner, and Zora Neale Hurston"
dissertation directors: John T. Matthews and Susan L. Mizruchi

French, German, Hungarian, Latin
Dance Notation Bureau certification in Elementary Labanotation

OTHER TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT