Dane Johnson

Biography

Dane Johnson began his studies of the world through International Relations (B.S.F.S., Georgetown University, 1985) before turning fully to the study of literature (Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature, Stanford University, 1994). He is currently a Professor in the Department of Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University, having joined the department in 1995. His teaching interests range from broad general education surveys; to discipline-specific training to more thematically-specific courses (e.g., “’Typical American’: Multicultural Literatures of the Americas, 1492 to the present).

He specializes in mid-19^th-20^th century multicultural literatures of Latin America and the United States, taking a broadly cultural studies approach to that literature with on-going interest in the interplay of literary form and identity and special expertise in Faulkner, García Márquez, and Morrison. He also has broad training in literary and critical theory with particular expertise in theories of literary value, and world literature theory and pedagogy.

Three book-length projects are on-going: 1) William Faulkner, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, and the Creation of Literary Value; 2) Franco's Censors, Barcelona's Publishers, and the Latin American "Boom" Novel; 3) “I’m Me”: The Hidden History (or Open Secret) of Being in America.

In his spare time, he likes talking to students about their interests—literary and otherwise.

Research and Interest

• 19-20^th century multicultural literatures of Latin America and the United States. On-going interest in the interplay of literary form and identity.
• Literary and critical theory broadly with a particular focus on theories of literary value (canonization, reading, censorship).
• World Literature theory and pedagogy.

Publications

• “Monstrous Mapping: A/Typical American Journey through the Re-mapping of the Americas.” Brújula 7 (2009): 13-31.

• “Reading. Writing. Talking. Silence: Ricardo Piglia, Luisa Valenzuela and the Argentine Dictatorship.” Power and Victimization. The Rhetoric of Sociopolitical Power and Representations of Victimhood in Contemporary Literature. Ed. Oya Berk and Sirma Soran Gumpert, ibidem (Stuttgart, Germany), 2005. 209-22.

• "'Wherein the South Differs from the North': Tracing the Noncosmopolitan Aesthetic in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude." Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies, ed. Deborah Cohn and Jonathan R. Smith, Duke University Press, 2004. 383-404.

• "'Better than Plato'; 'Like Terminator II': Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon in the 'Great Works' Classroom." Magazine, Fall 1997: 194-203.

• "Chased by Life, Politics, Demons; Flying to Fiction." Introduction to special issue on Mario Vargas Llosa. Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 1997: 9-14.

• "The Rise of Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison." Cultural Institutions of the Novel, Ed. Deidre Lynch and William B. Warner, Duke University Press, 1996. 129-56.

Languages

• Spanish (excellent reading, very good speaking ability)
• French (good reading ability)