Dr. Peter Schwenger
Professor Emeritus
B.A., Carleton College, 1964
M.A., Cornell University, 1965
Ph.D., Yale University, 1970
Email: peterschwenger@me.com
Research interests:
Asemic writing; liminal literature; narrative and the physical object; phenomenology of the sentence.
Selected publications:
Books
Asemic: The Art of Writing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.
At the Borders of Sleep: On Liminal Literature. University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
The Tears of Things: Melancholy and Physical Objects. University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Fantasm and Fiction: On Textual Envisioning. Stanford University Press, 1999.
Letter Bomb: Nuclear Holocaust and the Exploding Word. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Phallic Critiques: Masculinity and Twentieth-century Literature. Routledge, 1984. (Re-printed 2016.)
Selected Essays
“The Draw of the Mark.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 50, no. 2, 2024, pp. 335-351.
“Reading’s Residue.” Substance, vol. 51, no. 2, 2022, pp. 61-72.
“Fabienne Verdier and the Space Between Words.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 49, no. 1, 2022, pp. 102-116.
“Evenson’s Zeros.” Brian Evenson: L’empire de cruauté, edited by Florian Tréguer, Nawelle Lechevalier-Bekadar, and Sylvie Bauer, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2021, pp. 101-11.
“Phenomenology of the Scream.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 40, no.2, 2014, pp. 382-395.
“Abstract Comics and the Decomposition of Horror.” Horror Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 2011, pp. 265-289.
“The Obbligato Effect.” New Literary History, vol. 42, no. 1, 2011, pp. 115-128.
“Writing in the Night.” Gothic Studies, vol. 11, no.1, 2009, pp. 9-15.
“Writing Hypnagogia.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 34, no.3, 2008, pp. 423-439.
“Outside the Interior.” English Studies in Canada, vol. 31, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1-9.
“Gothic Optics.” Gothic Studies, vol. 7, no.1, 2005, pp. 102-109.
“The Dream Narratives of Debris” SubStance, vol. 100, 2003, pp. 75-89.
“Red Cannas, Sardine Cans, and the Gaze of the Object” Mosaic, vol. 35, no. 3, 2002, pp. 55-71.
“Still Life: A User’s Manual.” Narrative, vol. 10, no. 2, 2002, pp. 149-164.
“Words and the Murder of the Thing.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 28, 2001, pp. 99-113.
“Corpsing the Image.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 26, 2000, pp. 395-413.
“Uncanny Reading.” English Studies in Canada, vol. 21, no. 3, 1995, pp. 333-345.
“Agrippa, or, The Apocalyptic Book.” South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 92, no. 4, 1993, pp. 617-26.
“Prospero’s Books and the Visionary Page.” Textual Practice, vol. 8, no.2, 1994, pp. 268-278.
“Circling Ground Zero.” PMLA, vol. 106, 1991, pp. 251-261.
“The Masculine Mode.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 5, 1979, pp. 621-633.