Daniel R. Schwarz Daniel R. Schwarz|
Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English Literature and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow
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Office phone: (607) 255-9313
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Home Address: Ithaca, NY 14850
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I am the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University, where with great pleasure I have taught undergraduates and graduates since 1968. I am especially proud to have received in 1998 the Cornell Russell Distinguished Teaching Award and in 1999 the title of Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in recognition for Distinguished Teaching. My current projects are a book entitled the New York Times in Crisis and a book for Blackwell's Manifesto series tenttively entitled The Odyssey of Reading. My personal interests include films, travel, theatre, art museums, tennis, swimming, exercise, and restaurants.
My most recent book is Reading the Modern British and Irish Nove, 1890-1930 (Blackwell). Another Recent Book is Broadway Boogie Woogie: Damon Runyon and the Making of the New York City Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003):
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The book jacket reads: "Damon Runyon's popularity and importance in shaping American culture during the first half of the twentieth century can hardly be exaggerated. In lively and exuberant chapters that include a panoramic cultural view of New York City between the World Wars--with an emphasis on the city's colorful nightlife--Daniel R. Schwarz examines virtually every facet of Runyon's career, from sports writer, daily columnist, trial reporter, and Hollywood figure to the author of the still widely read short stories that were the source of the Broadway hit Guys and Dolls. As part of his discussion of Runyon's artistry, Schwarz skillfully examines the special language of the Broadway stories known as 'Runyonese' and shows how that language was shaped by urban culture, including vaudeville, jazz, radio, tabloid journalism, and gangster argot. While analyzing Runyon's high-spirited work in terms of historical contexts, popular culture, and the changing function of the media, Schwarz argues that Runyon was an indispensable figure in creating our public images of New York City culture. Indeed, 'Runyonese' has become an adjective describing flamboyant behavior. Schwarz demonstrates Runyon's impact on contemporary culture, including how his depiction of the demimonde and underworld have influenced The Godfather films and The Sopranos. " |
| "This fascinating and comprehensive study of Damon Runyon at last gives us a scholarly study that places him in company like Aaron Copeland and other major cultural figures that would have surprised him but probably, secretly, delighted him too. Bravo!"--William R. Taylor | "Schwarz's book makes a lively case for Runyan as a vernacular poet, a quirky character in his own right, and with Walter Winchell, a great reporter-impressario of New York's midtown demimonde during its golden years"--Morris Dickstein |
My book Imagining the Holocaust (New York: St. Martin's,
1999) has been recently published in paperback. The publisher
writes:
"Schwarz asks, 'What is the role of the literary imagination in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive for our culture?' He argues that, as we move further away from the original events, the kinds of narratives with which authors render the Holocaust horror evolve to include fantasy and parable. He is aware of how diverse audiences respond differently to these highly charged and emotional texts. Employing both a chronological overview and a synchronic approach he discovers recurring themes and structural patterns in the works he examines. He begins with first person reminiscences--Wiesel's Night, Levi's Survival at Auschwitz, and The Dairy of Anne Frank--before turning to realistic fictions such as Borowski's This Way for the Gas Chamber, Ladies and Gentlemen, Hersey's The Wall, and Kosinski's The Painted Bird. In later chapters, he explores diverse kinds of fictions and discusses the mythopoeic vision of Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just, the psychoanalytic complexity of Styron's Sophie's Choice, the illuminating distortions of Epstein's King of the Jews, the Kafkaesque parables of Appelfeld, and the fantastic cartoons of Spiegleman's Maus, books. He also includes Lanzmann's film Shoah and fiction by Ozick, Schulz, and Green as well as Keneally's Schindler's List and Spielberg's academy award-winning film of that novel .
I have also written several other books including Reconfiguring
Modernism: Explorations in the Relationship Between Modern Art
and Modern Literature (New York: St. Martin's, 1997). 
The publisher writes:
"Schwarz suggests diverse directions for studying the relationship between modern art and modern literature. Bringing together thirty years of experience on the subject and drawing upon specific texts and paintings, Schwarz proposes inter-relationships between such striking pairs of artists as Gauguin and Joseph Conrad, Manet and Henry James, Cézanne and T.S. Eliot, as well as a triptych consisting of Picasso, Stevens, and Joyce. He focuses on the high modernist period from 1890 to 1940 and examines the way in which we 'read' paintings as narrative. Reconfiguring Modernism provocatively discusses the reading of intertextual relationships between modern painters and modern authors as well as modern painters, especially Picasso's and Matisse's artistic "dialogue" on dance and music, and sheds new light on the influence of African, Asian, and Pacific cultures on European modernism. By juxtaposing works of art and literature, Schwarz erases the boundaries between visual and written texts. As we move into the last years of the twentieth century, this book will be crucial to our understanding of modernism."
My other books are Rereading
Conrad (2001) has just appeared in hardcover and paperback.
Narrative and Representation in Wallace Stevens (1993),
The Case for a Humanistic Poetics (1991), The Transformation
of the English Novel, 1890-1930 (1989; rev. ed. 1995), Reading
Joyce's ``Ulysses'' (1987), The Humanistic Heritage: Critical
Theories of the English Novel from James to Hillis Miller
(1986), Conrad: The Later Fiction (1982), Conrad: ``Almayer's
Folly'' through ``Under Western Eyes'' (1980), and Disraeli's
Fiction (1979). I have edited The Dead (1994) and The
Secret Sharer (1997) in the Bedford Case Studies in Contemporary
Literature Series, and I am co-editor of Narrative and Culture
(1994). For more information on my books, see my bibliography.
My books can be purchased at Amazon.com.
In recent years I have been publishing poetry and a little fiction. I am a founding member and past President of the International Narrative Society, have directed nine NEH seminars -- five for college teachers, four high school teachers -- and have lectured widely in the United States and abroad, including China, Australia, Czech Republic (Prague), Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Israel, France, and the UK many times.