Dr Paul Sheehan
Modernism, Narrative and Humanism
Dr Paul Sheehan
Position: Lecturer in English
Contact Details
Office: W6A 622
Phone: 61-2-9850 8757
Fax: 61-2-9850 6593
Email: paul.sheehan@humn.mq.edu.au
Qualifications
BA (Hons) NSW, PhD London
Profile
Paul Sheehan publishes and teaches in various areas of literature from the late nineteenth century to the present, particularly the changing cultures of modernism and postmodernism. His research and teaching interests also include literary and cultural theory, modern drama, and film studies.
Research
Current research includes two book-length projects. 'Violence and Aesthetics: From Dorian Gray to Hannibal' is a historical poetics of transgressive figures in the literature and cinema of the past hundred years. The second project focuses on the writings of Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, exploring the genesis of postwar literary theory through a philosophy of poetry.
Selected publications
Books
Modernism, Narrative and Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
As editor: Becoming Human: New Perspectives on the Inhuman Condition (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003).
Book chapters
'A World without Monsters: Beckett and the Ethics of Cruelty', in Russell Smith (ed.), Beckett and Ethics (forthcoming: New York : Continuum, 2008)
'Births for Nothing: Beckett's Ontology of Parturition' in S. E. Gontarski and Anthony Uhlmann (eds.), Beckett after Beckett (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006).
'Immanence, Autonomy and Integral Anomalies' in Stacy Gillis (ed.), The Matrix Trilogy: Cyberpunk Reloaded (London: Wallflower Press, 2005).
'Postmodernism and Philosophy', in Steven Connor (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
'Contingencies of Humanness', Introduction to Becoming Human: New Perspectives on the Inhuman Condition (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003).
Articles
'The Pleasures of Despair: Beckett's Ambiguous Legacy' in Textus XIX (2006): 495-508.
'A Malady of Dreaming: Aesthetics and Criminality in The Picture of Dorian Gray ' Irish Studies Review (August 2005) 13 (3): 333-40.
'Existentialism', 'Humanism' and 'Zoocentrism' articles in Chris Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski (eds.), The Grove Press Companion to Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 2004).
'Nothing Is More Real: Experiencing Theory in the Texts for Nothing ' in Journal of Beckett Studies (Fall 2000 / Spring 2001) 10 (1 / 2): 89-104. Florida State University, USA.
'Marx, Money, and Monstrosity in Great Expectations ', QWERTY 9 (October 1999): 97-104. University of Pau, France.
Web links
'Nothing Is More Real: Experiencing Theory in the Texts for Nothing '
Written
for Another Beckett Conference, Birkbeck College, London, 9-10 June 2000
(Edited version published in the Journal of Beckett Studies )
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/eng/conf/anotherbeckett/sheehan/
Review of Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature by Kylie
Valentine
Australian Humanities Review, Issue 34, Jan-Feb 2005
http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-Jan-2005/sheehan.html
Review of Essai sur l'indicible: JabĖs, Duras, Blanchot by Marie-Chantal
Killeen Colloquy: Text Theory Critique , Issue 10, Nov 2005
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/others/colloquy/issue10/sheehan.pdf (pdf
file)
Teaching
ENGL 320 Modernism
ENGL 431 Literary Theory
LIT 806 Literary Theory
ENGL 238 20th-Century Drama in Context
Administrative Roles
Honours Program Convenor
Organiser / chair of English Research Seminar series.
Organiser / facilitator of Postgraduate Theory Seminar series.