research overview
- Currently working on the relation of art to synesthesia. Other areas: Hitchcock, Freud, Nietzsche, Kafka, literary theory, aesthetics, psychoanalysis.
- Contact Info
Gordon, Paul Professor
Positions
- Professor, Humanities
Research Areas
Research
keywords
- aesthetics, art and philosophy, literary theory, film, psychoanalysis, rhetoric
Publications
selected publications
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book
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chapter
- Schopenhauer and the Metaphysics of Music. 256-270. 2020
- Approaching Angels: The Case for The Case for a Humanistic Poetics. 1-14. 2012
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journal article
- Judith and Beatrix: Oedipal Echo-Effects in Kill Bill. American Imago: psychoanalysis and the human sciences. 49-66. 2019
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Hitchcock's cryptonomies, vol 1, Secret agents, vol 2, War machines..
Comparative Literature.
183-185.
2006
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Illustrationof J. Hillis Miller.
Word and Image.
83-97.
2006
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Psychoanalysis and Racism: The Politics of Defeat.
Race and Class: a journal of racism, empire and globalisation.
17-34.
2001
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Lord Jim,Paul de Man, and the debate between deconstructive and humanistic criticism.
LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.
65-84.
1998
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NIETZSCHE,FRIEDRICH ON RHETORIC AND LANGUAGE - GILMAN,SL, BLAIR,C, PARENT,DJ.
Metaphor and Symbol.
103-107.
1992
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SALOME AND THE DANCE OF WRITING - PORTRAITS OF MIMESIS IN LITERATURE - MELTZER,F.
Metaphor and Symbol.
307-310.
1991
- SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS NOT JUST A CIGAR - A FREUDIAN ANALYSIS OF UNCLE-CHARLES IN HITCHCOCK 'SHADOW OF A DOUBT'. Literature-Film Quarterly. 267-276. 1991
- FREUD 'ON THE ANTITHETICAL SENSE OF PRIMARY WORDS' - PSYCHOANALYSIS, ART, AND THE ANTITHETICAL SENSES. Style (DeKalb). 167-186. 1990
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MISOGYNY, DIONYSIANISM AND A NEW MODEL OF GREEK TRAGEDY.
Womens Studies: an interdisciplinary journal|1699 Other Studies in Human Society.
211-218.
1990
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THE ENIGMA OF ARISTOTELIAN METAPHOR - A DECONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS.
Metaphor and Symbol.
83-90.
1990
- ROMANTICISM, FIGURATION AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE. Neohelicon: acta comparationis litterarum universarum. 239-259. 1989
- KAFKA,FRANZ PARABLE 'ON PARABLES'. Cithara. 11-19. 1988
Teaching
courses taught
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HUMN 2000 - Methods and Approaches to the Humanities
Primary Instructor - Fall 2018
Provides a transition from the introductory courses to the upper-division courses. Introduces the various technical methods and topics encountered in the department's comparative, interdisciplinary upper-division courses, including cultural studies, rhetoric, translation, hermeneutics, word/image studies. -
HUMN 3240 - Tragedy
Primary Instructor - Fall 2018 / Fall 2019 / Fall 2020
Studies some of the great tragic works of art, music,and literature from the Greeks to the 20th century. Tragic theory is invoked as an aid to interpretation. -
HUMN 4011 - The Criminal-Hero
Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021
Studies various theories of literary transgression by Aristotle, Nietzsche, Freud, Bataille and others to understand the many works, beginning with Genesis and the Iliad and including contemporary works such as Norman Mailer's The Executioners Song and the films of Herzog (Aguirre, Nosferatu) and Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Cape Fear) which feature this paradoxical figure. -
HUMN 4135 - Art and Psychoanalysis
Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Summer 2018 / Spring 2019 / Summer 2019 / Spring 2020 / Summer 2020 / Spring 2021
Explores psychoanalytic theory as it relates to our understanding of literature, film and other arts. After becoming familiar with some essential Freudian notions (repression, narcissism, ego/libido, dreamwork, etc.), students apply these ideas to works by several artists (e.g., Flaubert, James, Kafka, Hoffmann and Hitchcock). -
HUMN 4155 - Philosophy, Art, and the Sublime
Primary Instructor - Fall 2018 / Fall 2019 / Fall 2020
Explores philosophies of art, theories of the sublime, and the relation between art and morality through philosophy, literature, and the visual arts. Includes works by Plato, Longinus, Burke, Rousseau, Kant, Mary Shelley, Melville, Friedrich, Turner, and Pollock.
Background
education and training
- Ph.D., Yale University 1984
- B.A., SUNY at Buffalo 1978