B.A. Brown University, M.A. University of Maryland, Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University

Contact and Office Hours

Office: Parker Hall 308
Phone: (718) 420-4523
E-mail: steven.thomas@wagner.edu
Office Hours (fall 2013): 
Blogs: Theory Teacher’s Blog, Film and Media, and Atlantic Literature

Current Courses (spring 2013)

EN 111 World Literature  2:40–4:10 pm T/Th
EN 291 Movies, Media, and Global Citizenship  8:00–9:30 am M/W
EN 400 Senior Reflective Tutorial  11:20 am–12:50 pm M/W

Academic, Teaching, and Personal Interests

My research interests include early American literature, the rhetoric and discourses of British imperialism during the 17th and 18th centuries, globalization in the 21st century, cultural theory, and the literary and cultural relationship between America and Ethiopia. In the past, I have taught a range of courses including American Literature from the European to the American Renaissance, Postcolonial Literature, Race and Ethnicity in American Literature, Introduction to Theory, Introduction to Film Studies, Caribbean Theory and Literature, and the Globalization of American Literary History. My all-time favorite class was titled ”Pirates, Puritans and the Revolutionary Atlantic World.” On a more personal level, I have worked with Oromo immigrants from Ethiopia to produce an on-line literary and arts webzine called Ogina: Oromo Arts in Diaspora. In my spare time, I enjoy detective novels and film noir, am somewhat devoted to running and swimming, and have done a few triathlons.

Selected Presentations and Publications

“Taxing Tobacco and the Metonymies of Virtue: the Poetics of Thomson, Browne, Byrd, and Cooke.” Global Economies, Cultural Currencies of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Michael Rotenberg-Schwartz. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 2012. 73-96.

“Ethiopia in Harlem Renaissance Drama,” presented to the Addis Ababa University Theater Department. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 18, 2010.

 ”The New James Bond and Globalization Theory, Inside and Out.” CineAction 78 (2009): 32-9.

 “Doctoring Ideology: James Grainger’s The Sugar Cane and the Bodies of Empire.” Early American Studies 4:1 (2006): 78-111.

 Awards, Honors, and Service

International Advisory Board of Sandscribe Communications, 2009 – present.