Jonathan Levin, Ph.D.
Dean of Humanities
Professor of Literature and Culture,
School of Humanities
Office: Humanities Building, Room 2020
Tel: (914) 251-6550
Fax: (914) 251-6559
Email: jonathan.levin@purchase.edu
Jonathan Levin is Dean of the School of Humanities and Professor of Literature and Culture. His research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature and culture, modernism and modernity, and environmental studies. He received his bachelor's degree in English and French from the University of Michigan, his masters degree in English from UCLA, and his doctoral degree in English from Rutgers University. Associate Editor of Raritan Review from 1991-2001, he now serves on the Editorial Board of William James Studies.
Education
- PhD in English, 1992, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
- MA in English, 1985, University of California, Los Angeles
- AB in English and French, 1983, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- L'Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France, 1981-82
Positions
- Associate Professor of English, Fordham University, 2001-05
- English Department Chair, Fordham University, 2004-05
- American Studies Program Acting Director, Fordham University, 2004
- Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 1997-2001
- Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 1991-97
- Visiting Professor of English, SUNY (Stony Brook), 2000
Areas of Expertise
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature and Culture, Modernism and Modernity, Environmental Studies
Honors and Fellowships
- Faculty Fellowship, Fordham U (2003)
- 1999 Choice "Outstanding Academic Title" for The Poetics of Transition
- NEH Fellowship at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (1998-99)
- Chamberlain Fellowship, Columbia U (1994-95)
- Junior Faculty Development Grant, Columbia (1994-95)
- Council on Research in the Humanities Fellowships (1992, 1993)
- Awarded fellowship support for graduate study at UCLA and Rutgers U
- David L. Kalstone Prize for PhD Dissertation, Wallace Stevens and the American Pragmatic Tradition (1992)
- Catherine Moynahan Prize for graduate essay "Entering the modern composition: Gertrude Stein and the Patterns of Modernism" (1991)
- Graduated the U of Michigan with High Distinction and Highest Honors in English (1983). Honors Thesis: "Beyond the End of the Road: The Rise of Artistic Consciousness and
- Its Evolution in the Work of John Barth, 1956-1979"
- Phi Beta Kappa (1983)
Research and Publications
Books | Edited Editions | Selected Articles | Reference Articles | Reviews
Recent Panels and Lectures
The Poetics of Transition: Emerson, Pragmatism, & American Literary Modernism (Duke University Press, 1999).
Gertrude Stein, Three Lives, Editor, with Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography, "Barnes and Noble Classics Series" (Fine Communications, 2005).
Henry David Thoreau, Walden and "Civil Disobedience", Editor, with Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography, "Barnes and Noble Classics Series" (Fine Communications, 2003).
Walt Whitman, Editor, with Introduction and Notes, "Poetry for Young People" (Sterling, 1997). Reissued in paperback as Walt Whitman (Scholastic, 2002).
"Beyond Nature?: Recent Work in Ecocriticism" (Review-Essay), Contemporary Literature 43.1 (2002): 171-86.
"Coordinates and Connections: Self, Community, and World in Edward Abbey and William Least Heat-Moon," Contemporary Literature 41.2 (2000): 214-51.
"Between Science and Anti-Science: A Response to Glen A. Love," Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 7.1 (2000): 1-8.
"Embracing the Contingent: A Pragmatist Defense of Literary Studies," Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 47.1 (1999): 3-23.
Contribution to Forum on "Literatures of the Environment," PMLA 114.5 (1999): 1097-98.
"Why James?", Streams of William James: A Newsletter of the William James Society, 1.1 (Spring 1999).
"Wallace Stevens and the Pragmatist Imagination," Arbejdspapirer 13 (1998): 2-24. Published by the Institut for Litteraturhistorie, Århus University, Denmark.
"The Literature of Place: Towards a Literary Ecology," Arbejdspapirer 13 (1998): 25-45.
"Realism and Imagination in the Thought of Henry and William James: A Conversation," with Sheldon M. Novick, The Henry James Review 18.3 (1997): 291-307.
"Making Shadows in the Dark: Housekeeping, from Page to Screen," in Vision/Revision: Adapting Contemporary American Fiction by Women to Film, ed. Barbara Tepa Lupack (Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1996): 101-26.
"The Esthetics of Pragmatism," American Literary History 6 (1994): 658-83.
"Life in the Transitions: Emerson, William James, Wallace Stevens," Arizona Quarterly 48.4 (Winter 1992): 76-97.
"'Entering the Modern Composition': Gertrude Stein and the Patterns of Modernism," in Rereading the New: A Backward Glance at Modernism, ed. Kevin J. H. Dettmar (U of Michigan Press, 1992): 137-63
"Wallace Stevens's Harmonium," A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, Eds. David Bradshaw and Kevin J. H. Dettmar (Blackwell, 2006).
"Wallace Stevens," Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, ed. Eric Haralson (Fitzroy-Dearborn, 2001).
"Thom Gunn," in British Writers, Supplement IV, eds. George Stade and Carol Howard (Scribner's, 1997): 255-79.
Rev. of Practical Ecocriticism: Literature, Biology, and the Environment, by Glen Love. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 21.1 (2005): 256-57.
Rev. of The Uses of Variety: Modern Americanism and the Quest for National Distinctiveness, by Carrie Tirado Bramen. American Literature (2003): 218-20..
Rev. of The Song of the Earth, by Jonathan Bate. Contemporary Literature 43.1 (2002): 171-86.
Rev. of Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environmentin the U. S. and Beyond, by Lawrence Buell. Contemporary Literature 43.1 (2002): 171-86.
Rev. of American Literary Environmentalism, by David Mazel. Contemporary Literature 43.1 (2002): 171-86.
Rev. of Farther Afield in the Study of Nature-Oriented Literature, by Patrick D. Murphy. Contemporary Literature 43.1 (2002): 171-86.
Rev. of Sustainable Poetry: Four American Ecopoets, by Leonard M. Scigaj. Contemporary Literature 43.1(2002): 171-86.
Rev. of William James's "Streams of Delight": The Return to Life, by Phil Oliver. Transactions of the Charles Peirce Society 37.4 (2001): 669-73.
Rev. of Providence Tales and the Birth of American Literature, by James D. Hartman. Biography 24.3 (2001): 659-61.
Rev. of Henry James and the Philosophical Novel: Being and Seeing, by Merle A. Williams. The Henry James Review 19.2 (1998): 197-200.
Rev. of Meaning & Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge, by G. L. Hagberg. The Henry James Review 16.3 (1995): 340-43.
Rev. of The Last Puritan, by George Santayana, edited by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., and William G. Holzberger, introduction by Irving Singer. The Partisan Review 62.3 (1995): 502-06.
Rev. of Emerson's Pragmatic Vision: The Dance of the Eye, by David Jacobson. Philosophy and Literature 18.1 (1994): 193-94.
"Towards a New American Poetics," Panel featuring Angus Fletcher (respondent), Fordham, Lincoln Center, December 2005.
"Biogregionalism: Natural Fact, Cultural Project, Spiritual Metaphor?", American Studies Association, November 2005.
"Fetishizing the First Edition: Reflections on 1855," "Celebrating Walt Whitman," L’Universite de Paris, France, July 2005.
"Wrestling with Angels: Three Jewish Poets on Family" (moderator), with Hermine Meinhard, Anna Rabinowitz, and Rachel Zucker, Manhattan JCC, March 2005.
"The Urban Pastoral Writings of Joseph Mitchell," Phi Beta Kappa Address, College of Staten Island (CUNY), May 2004.
"Imaginary Stetls: Nostalgia and Desire in Recent Jewish Fiction," American Literature Association, San Francisco, May 2004
"Joseph Mitchell's Urban Pastoral Aesthetic," Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Boston University, June 2003
"Hammett, Chandler, Low High Modernism," "Low Modernism Seminar," Modernist Studies Association, University of Wisconsin (Madison), October 2002
"Holist Science and the Challenge of Culture," Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Northern Arizona University, June 2001.