Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
2
Ann Larabee
235 Ernst Bessey Hall
Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1033
Phone: 517-355-2400
Email:
CURRENT POSITION:
Associate Chair, Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures, Michigan State University.
EDUCATION:
PhD with distinction, English, Binghamton University, 1988.
Areas of specialization: Feminist Theory, Women Dramatists, Shakespeare
Dissertation: First Wave Feminist Theater, 1890-1930
PUBLICATIONS
Books:
The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Tale of a Confederate Spy, Con Artist, and Mass Murderer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005. (Published in Canada as The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Story of Alexander Keith, Jr., Nova Scotian Spy, Con-Artist and International Terrorist. Halifax, NS: Nimbus, 2005).
Four weeks on the Nova Scotian bestseller list.
Decade of Disaster. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
Chapters:
"A Brief History of Terrorism in the United States." Technology and Terrorism. Ed. David Clarke. Transaction, 1004. 19-40
“Empire of Fear: Imagined Community and the September 11 Attacks.” Terrorism and Disaster: New Threats, New Ideas. Research in Social Problems and Public Policy Series. Vol. 11. Ed. Lee Ben Clarke. Elsevier, 2003. 19-32.
“Negotiating Disaster: Interpretive Networks in Popular Culture.” Forthcoming in The Popular Culture of Disasters. Ed. Gary Webb and E. R. Quarantelli (International Committee on Disaster Research). Xlibris, forthcoming.
“Bhopal.” Forthcoming in Encyclopedia of World Environmental History. Ed. John McNeill, Carolyn Merchant, and Shepard Krech III. Routledge, 2003.
" 'Nothing Ends Here': Managing the Challenger Disaster." American Disasters. Ed. Steven Biel. New York: NYU Press, 2002. 197-220.
Excerpts from "The American Hero and His Mechanical Bride: Gender Myths of the Titanic Disaster" (American Studies, 1990). Reprinted in Titanic: An Anthology. Ed. John Wilson Foster. Penguin UK, 1999.
"'The Drama of Transformation': Settlement House Idealism and the Neighborhood Playhouse." In Performing America: Cultural Nationalism in American Theatre. Ed. J.Ellen Gainor and Jeffrey Mason. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999: 123-138.
" 'We're Talking Science, Man, Not Voodoo,': Genetic Disaster in Anne Rice's Mayfair Witch Chronicles," The Gothic World of Anne Rice. Ed. Gary Hoppenstand. Bowling Green: Popular Press, 1996: 173-184.
" 'Meeting the Outside Face to Face': Susan Glaspell, Djuna Barnes, and O'Neill's The Emperor Jones." In Modern American Drama: The Female Canon. Ed. June Schlueter. Cranbury, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson UP, 1990: 77-85.
"The Early Attic Stage of Djuna Barnes." In Silence and Power: A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes. Ed. Mary Lynn Broe. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991: 37-44.
Articles:
“A Brief History of Terrorism in the United States,” Knowledge, Technology, and Policy. 16.1 (2003): 21-38.
"Technology in Popular Culture." Science, Technology, and Society (Fall/Winter 1994): 15-17.
"Radioactive Body Politics: AIDS as Nuclear Text." Literature and Medicine 13 (Fall 1994): 229-242. Excerpts also appeared in Lesbian/Gay Studies Newsletter 21 (Spring 1994): 7.
" 'Remembering the Shuttle, Forgetting the Loom': Interpreting the Challenger Disaster." Postmodern Culture 4 (May 94). Winner of the Electronic Text Award, 1994. Available on-line through Project Muses.
" 'Going Through Harriet': Ritual and Theatre in the Women's Colleges." The New England Theatre Journal 3 (Spring 1992): 39-60.
"Ground Zero: The City, the Bomb and the End of History." Canadian Review of American Studies 22 (Fall 1991): 263-279.
“The American Hero and His Mechanical Bride: Gender Myths of the Titanic Disaster,” American Studies 31 (Spring 1990): 5-23.
“Death in Delphi: Susan Glaspell and the Companionate Marriage.” Mid-American Review 7 (Summer 1987): 93-106.
Journalism:
"It's Not How to Make a Bomb That's the Problem." Reviewed and distributed in 2005 by the History News Network, and published in Taiwan News, Chicago Sun Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Athens Banner-Herald.
Review Essays:
“Teen.” In U. S. Consumer Magazines for Women. Eds. Terry Lueck and Katherine Endress. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995: 358-362.
“Marge Piercy’s He, She, and It,” Revisions 6 (Spring 1993): 7-10.
Book Reviews:
Review of Sonja Kuftinec's Staing America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater. Theatre Survey 45 (2004). 284.
Review of Cheryl Black's The Women of Provincetown, 1915-1922. Theatre Survey 45 (2004). 121.
Review of Susan C. Haedicke and Tobin Nellhaus's Performing Democracy: International Perspectives on Urban Community-Based performance. Theater Survey 44 (2003). 280.
Review of Eric Klinenberg’s Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster (U of Chicago, 2002). H-Urban, July 2003.
Review of David M. Lubin, Titanic (British Film Institute, 1999). American Studies 42.2 (2001): 186.
Review of Len Ackland. Making a Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West (U of New Mexico P, 1999). Isis 92.4 (2001): 803.
Review of Tyler Cowen, What Price Fame? (Harvard UP, 2000), Biography 24 (2001): 675.
In Progress
Alchemists of the Revolution: A History of Terrorist Bomb-Making in the United States. In Progress.
AWARDS
Research Grant, Critical Incident Analysis Group, Michigan State University, 1996.
Electronic Text Award for Best Essay, Postmodern Culture Journal, 1994.
Participant, Rethinking Technology, NEH Institute, Pennsylvania State University, June-July 1994.
MSU International Studies Program's Special Foreign Travel Fund, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2002.
Charles A. Shanklin Award for Original Graduate Research, Bowling Green State University, 1985.
Women's Studies Alumnae Prize, Bowling Green State University, 1985.
PRESENTATIONS
The Dynamite Fiend. Presentation and book signing. Barnes & Noble, East Lansing. October 30, 2005.
The Dynamite Fiend. Invited presentation. Case Western Civil War Roundtable. Berea, Ohio. October 12, 2005.
"The Case of Alexander Keith, Jr.: Dynamite, Murder, and Terror in 19th C Public Culture." Invited presentation. Dalhousie University, Halifax. October 7, 2005.
Book Tour for The Dynamite Fiend, Appearances on CTV Toronto Provincewide, Global TV Halifax, ATV Halifax Evening News, CTV Breakfast TV, Rogers Radio Halifax, CJCH Radio Halifax. Halifax, October 6-9; Toronto, October 24-25, 2005.
Alexander Keith, Jr., Fiend and Fraud. CBC Radio Halifax, 14 November 2003.
“Technologies of the Revolution: Bomb-Making in 19th C America,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Hartford, CT, 17 October 2003.
“Alchemists of the Revolution.” Invited paper for the seminar series at the Hagley Center for Business, Technology, and Society, Wilmington, DE, 2 October 2003.
“Sky Terror: A Meditation on the Skylines of Riyadh, Seoul, and Chicago,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Houston, Texas, 14-17 November 2002.
“Bhopal: The Union Carbide Factory Site as a Place of Witness,” Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Tampere, Finland, 29 June- 2 July 2002. I organized two sessions on disasters as cultural events for this conference.
“Portable Force Unleashed: The Unexpected Consequences of New Explosives in the 19th Century,” 29th Symposium of the International Committee on the History of Technology, Granada, Spain, 24-29 June 2002.
“Gender and the Internet,” online forum for NetLearning 2002, University of Stockholm, August 2002.
“The Ultimate Ten Worst Technological Disasters,” Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Cambridge, MA, 1-4 November 2001.
"Disaster and Reproduction," presented at the Memories of Catastrophe Conference, University of Southampton, April 14-17, 2000.
"The Unabomber as Self-Destructing Artifact," invited for presentation at the Conspiracy
Culture Conference, Winchester, England, July 5-7, 1998.
"Archiving Disaster," American Studies Association's annual convention, Washington,D.C., Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1997. I organized this panel on disaster studies that included Carl Smith, Steven Biel, and Thomas Birkland.
"The Titanic on the Web," British Association for American Studies annual convention, Birmingham, England, April 4-7, 1997.
Invited Presenter, Charley Stivale's Professional Issues for Languages, Literatures, and Cultural Studies course, Wayne State University, Winter, 1996.
"The Unabomber as Self-Destructing Artifact," American Studies Association's annual convention, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1996.
"Chernobyl in American Memory," Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference, Tampere, Finland, July 4-6, 1996.
"Cultural Studies and STS," National Association for Science, Technology, and Society, annual meeting, Arlington, VA, March 2-5, 1995.
"Theorizing Community Theatre: The Neighborhood Playhouse," American Theatre Association's annual convention, Chicago, July 1994.
"Popular Culture and the Philosophy of Science and Technology," NEH Summer Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, July 1994.
"Radioactive Body Politics: And the Band Played On as Nuclear Text," Modern Language Association's Annual Convention, December 1993.
"The Magnetized Predicament: From Theatre to Cinema in the Works of Djuna Barnes," delivered at the Modern Language Association's Annual Convention, December 1992.
"The Magnetized Predicament: From Theatre to Cinema in Nightwood," invited paper for the Djuna Barnes Centennial Conference, University of Maryland, October 1992.
"Technospectacle," delivered at the annual American Culture Association Conference, Louisville, March 1992.
"Radioactive Body Politics: AIDS and the Nuclear Referent," delivered at the Mid-Atlantic American Culture Association meeting, Buffalo, October 30--November 1, 1991.
"Denatured Nature," delivered at the Midwest American Culture Association meeting, Cleveland, October 24-25, 1991.
"Apocalyptic City: Preservation and Decay in the 'Post-Attack Environment,'" delivered at the Canadian American Studies Association's Conference on the City, Montreal, November 1990.
"Star Children: The Rhetoric of Artificial Intelligence," delivered at the Midwest American Culture Association's annual meeting, Toledo, October 1990.
"Suffrage Pageantry," slide presentation at the National Women's Studies Association's annual conference, June 1990.
"Gender Myths of the Titanic Disaster," delivered at the Midwest American Culture Association's annual meeting, Lansing, October 1989.
"The Ecological University," delivered at a Department of American Thought and Language Colloquium, November 1989.
"Ritual and Theatre in the Women's Colleges," slide presentation at the Women in
Translation Conference, SUNY-Binghamton, April 1988.
"The Iconography of the Vote: Women in the Provincetown Players," delivered at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Convention, Chicago, August 1987.
"The Titanic Woman on the Gothic Stage," delivered at the Third International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, Dublin, Ireland, July 1987.
"Women's Voice and the Provincetown Players," delivered at the American Culture Conference, Montreal, March 1987.
"The Vital Lie: Susan Glaspell and the Companionate Marriage," delivered at a colloquium entitled, "About Women: Thinking, Writing and Dreaming," SUNY-Binghamton, 1986.
COURSES TAUGHT:
American Studies:
Transcultural Persepctives
War, Disaster, and Trauma in America
American Studies Theory, Method, and Bibliography
Body/Technology
Women’s Studies:
Impacts of New Technologies on Women
Introduction to Women’s Studies
American Thought and Language:
Women in America
American Radical Thought
Science and Technology
Men in America
English:
American Women Writers
Short Story
Modern American Drama
Freshman Writing
Literature and Medicine
DISSERTATION COMMITEES
Director:
Mary Gebhart, Feminism, Biologism, and the Michigan Womyn’s Festival, in progress
Denise Pilato, The Retrieval of a Legacy: Perspectives on the Presence and Progress of Nineteenth
Century Women Inventors in American Cultures, 1998. Published by Praeger, 2000.
Committee Member:
Mike Biegas, History of the Rand Corporation, in progress.
Cecilia Samonte, Women’s Travel Writing in the Philippines
April Herndon, (Un)American Fatness and the Body Politic, 2003
Manista, Frank. Negotiating Identity: Voice and Boundary in the Works of James Joyce, 2000.
Pranab Kumar, Possessive Individualism and Self-Destruction: A Recurring Narrative in Selected Plays of
Tennessee Williams
ACADEMIC SERVICE
University-wide:
Chair, Summer Working Group on Faculty Voice, 200-2005.
Chair, University Committee on Academic Governance, 2004-2005.
Elected Member, Executive Committee of Academic Council, 2004-2005.
Elected Member, University Council on Academic Governance, 2003-2005.
Elected Member, Academic/Faculty Council, 2002-2005.
College-wide:
Member, College Graduate Committee, 2003-
Member, Tier I Writing Task Force, 2005.
Department Representative, Committee on College Restructuring, 2003.
Consulting Member, Women and International Development Program, MSU, 1999-.
Consulting Member, Canadian Studies Center.
Communication Skills Component Supervisor, Drew Science Enrichment Laboratory for Minority Students in Science and Engineering, 1998.
American Studies Advisory Board, 1997-.
Women's Studies Advisory Board, 1998-2003.
Presenter, College Fellows Colloquium, 1997.
Faculty Advisor, Tower Guard (MSU Sophomore Honors Society), 1993-2000.
Department-wide:
Elected member, Reappointment, Promotion,and Tenure Committee, 2002-.
Interim Associate Chair, Department of American Thought and Language, Fall 1998.
Chair, Technology Commmittee, 1997-present.
Chair, Ad hoc committee to develop department webpage, 1995.
Elected Member, Curriculum Committee, 1995-1997, 1999.
Elected Member, Advisory Council, American Thought and Language, Michigan State University, 1995-1997.
Member, Course Planning Committees, MSU, 1989--present.
Mentor for teaching assistants, MSU, 1992-1998.
Chair, Co-curricular Programs Committee, MSU, 1989-1991.
External:
Co-Editor, Journal for the Study of Radicalism.
Member, Advisory Board, Fourth Genre
Reviewer, Limina
Reviewer, Journal of Philosophy and Technology, 1998.
Reviewer, Literature and Medicine, 1994.
Manuscript reviewer for Praeger, Simon and Schuster, Norton.
PUBLIC SERVICE
Participant, E-Forum on Gender Equality, Environmental Management and Natural Disaster Mitigation,
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, 2002.
Academic Consultant, Public Media Foundation and National Public Radio's "Scribblin' Women" series
which received a Michigan Humanities Council Grant in 1993.
Vice-President (elected), Lansing Area AIDS Network, 1993-1997.
Chair, Client Services Committee, Lansing Area AIDS Network, 1992-1993.
MEMBERSHIPS
Gender and Disaster Network
American Studies Association