Q: What are you research interests, both academic and for fun!?

 I continue to be intrigued by the impact of new technologies, the changing shapes and meanings of the material world as people become more absorbed in the virtual and digital, and the pursuit of authenticity through artificial media. Now that I'm retired and no longer teaching, I have time to indulge a wide range of interests outside my main areas of research--such as Iain Sinclair's obsessive forays into psychogeography and Orhan Pamuk's deep dives into Turkish history and culture.

Q: Are you currently working on any projects (academically or otherwise), and if so tell us about them!

I'm redefining the scope of an ongoing book project on neo-Beats (artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other cultural producers who appropriated themes and techniques from writers of the Beat generation). With archival research completed on people ranging from Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs to Laurie Anderson, Paul Auster, and Robert Wilson, and articles already published on Anderson, Tom Waits, and on directors such as Wim Wenders and Aki Kaurismäki who made Euro-American road movies, the subject is expanding too much. I'm now downsizing the project so I can complete a manuscript in the next couple years. I'm also trying to recast the project so there may actually be an audience for it. If not, I may veer in some new direction (maybe fiction involving the Aaron Burr conspiracy). I'm also scanning favorite images from thousands of 35mm slides I've taken over the years. Sometimes I wish digital photography was around before I started taking pictures.

Q: What is the nature of your work? What method(s) do you utilize the most? How does your work align with American Studies at UT?

I devoured theory in the 90s while teaching a seminar on postmodern culture and still enjoy reading the occasional dense tome, but my work is best described as old-fashioned pre-theoretical cultural history. Before writing about a topic, I read everything I can find that's remotely related, both primary and secondary sources, until there's nothing left to look at. I take copious notes along the way. Back in the day I wrote on 5x8 note cards, one card for each fact, brief topic, short source, or long quotation. Later I added comments, questions, and directions using colored markers. After reading and taking notes for a project, a process that would take years for a book, I organized the mountain of cards, added more comments on them, shuffled them around, and made lists of topics to cover. Now I type notes into a Word file for each article or book that I've read, eventually copy-pasting and printing out the stuff I really need. Bottom line is that I do all the reading and note taking before I write a single word. Then I start with chapter one and work through to the end. Theory comes in, when needed, as I organize and write, and is mostly relegated to endnotes. If a general reader interested in the subject can't read and enjoy what I've written, then I've failed.

Q: How did you come to American Studies as a discipline?

When I was a sophomore at Brown University in the late 60s, I took a year-long survey course on American literature from Barton St. Armand, a young English professor who organized everything through his own quirky myth-and-symbol categories: the apocalyptic and the transcendental. He happened to be director of Brown's American Civilization program, and I realized in that program I could major in American literature and culture without having to read Chaucer or Spenser, so I did. Later I discovered a more historical but equally open and freewheeling approach studying with Bill Goetzmann, who ran UT's American Studies program during the 1970s. As with so many experiences that turn out to have been formative, American Studies was something I just happened into.

Q: How does American Studies at UT make your work possible?

During my 40 years on the UT AMS faculty, I was able to teach, research, and write about whatever I wanted. There were no disciplinary borders and sanctions I had to obey. That openness has pros and cons. One of the latter was having very few people around, other than undergrad students taking specialized lecture courses and seminars, to discuss my work with. I think the freedom then provided by American studies outweighed that.

Bonus Q: What is a fun fact about you that you would like your colleagues, peers, and students to know about you?

My birthday is July 2, the actual Independence Day, the date the Continental Congress definitively voted to declare the United States separate from and independent of Great Britain. July 4 is the day the written statement was adopted.