Aaron Jaffe

Frances Cushing Ervin Professor
WMS 429
Modernism; Modern and contemporary literature, culture, media

AARON JAFFE, Frances Cushing Ervin Professor of English; Ph.D. Indiana University, 2001; M.A. Indiana University, 1997; B.A. Colgate University 1993; specializes in modernism, modern and contemporary literature, culture, and media. He is the author of Modernism and the Culture of Celebrity (Cambridge University Press, 2005, 2009) and The Way Things Go: An Essay on the Matter of Second Modernism (University of Minnesota Press, 2014). In 2016, he edited a special issue of Modernism/Modernity on Inhumanism. With Jonathan Goldman, he edited Modernist Star Maps (2010), and, with Edward Comentale, he edited The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies (2009) and The Year's Work at the Zombie Research Center (2014). Jaffe co-edits, with Comentale, the Year's Work book series with Indiana University Press on fan cultures, cultural theory and objects from Indiana University Press. He is working on two books: one on literary risk, administration, and value, and one on spoilers. He is also working on an edited collection on Paleofuturism.

Books

  • Spoiler Alert: A Critical Guide. University of Minnesota Press, 2019.
  • The Way Things Go: An Essay on the Matter of Second Modernism (University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
  • Modernism and the Culture of Celebrity (Cambridge University Press, 2005, 2009)

Co-edited Collections

  • Understanding Vilém Flusser, Understanding Modernism, co-edited with Michael Miller and Rodrigo Martini (forthcoming Bloomsbury, 2021)
  • Special Issue: Control. symplokē 28:1-2 (2020)
  • Special Issue: Modernist Inhumanisms. Modernism/modernity (2016)
  • The Year's Work at the Zombie Research Center, co-edited with Edward Comentale (Indiana University Press, 2014)
  • The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies, co-edited with Edward Comentale (Indiana University Press, 2009)
  • Absolute(ly) Lebowski. German translation of The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies. (Orange Press, 2010)
  • Modernist Star Maps, co-edited with Jonathan E. Goldman (Ashgate, 2010)

Selected Articles and Chapters

  • “Bitcoin, Shitcoin, Wickcoin: The Hidden Phenomenology of John Wick,” The Worlds of John Wick: The Year's Work at the Continental Hotel, Edited by Caitlin G. Watt and Stephen Watt. Forthcoming, Indiana University Press, 2022
  • "THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO THEORIZE (WE SALUTE YOU),” symplokē (forthcoming, 2021)
  • “Gestures of Control,” symplokē 28:1-2 (2020) 17-28.
  • “I Live in Dystopia," interview with M. Cristina Iuli, symplokē 28:1-2 (2020) 29-36.
  • “The Lingering Louche: Absinthe, the Green Demon of Alternative Modernity.” The Shaken and the Stirred: The Year's Work in Cocktail Culture. Eds. Stephen Schneider and Craig Owens. Indiana University Press, 2020.
  • “ABC: Antihumanist Modernism in Biopolitical Junkyards of Controlled Remediation and Risk,” Textual Practice (2020).
  • With Michael Miller, “Strong Claims for Weak Theory,” Modernism/Modernity, Print+. 3.4. (February 7, 2019).
  • “Popular Culture; or, Plasticman, Where Are You?” Bloomsbury Companion to Literary and Cultural Theory. Ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Bloomsbury, 2018.
  • “Updating as Modernity; or, Impermanent Test Dept.” Thresholds. No. 2 (2018).
  • “Canto 12.” Readings in the Cantos, Volume 1. Ed. Richard Parker. University of Liverpool Press, 2018.
  • “Experience to Experiment, Signs to Signals: Towards Vilém Flusser's New World,” American Literature as World Literature, ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Bloomsbury, 2017, 187-208.
  • "Who's Afraid of the Inhuman Woolf?" Modernism/Modernity 23.3 (September 2016).
  • "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER: Inhumanism at the Literary Limit," Oddball Archives (Indiana University Press, 2016).
  • "Paleolithic Media: Deep Time and Pound's Method," Ezra Pound in the Present: Essays on Pound's Contemporaneity, eds. Paul Stasi and Josephine Park (Bloomsbury, 2016).
  • "Total Unconscious: Jameson, Conrad, and James," Henry James Review 36.3 (Fall 2015).
  • "Zombie Demographics." The Year's Work at the Zombie Research Center. Eds. Edward Comentale and Aaron Jaffe (Indiana University Press, 2014).
  • Co-authored with Edward Comentale. "Introduction: The Zombie Research Center FAQ." The Year's Work at the Zombie Research Center. Eds. Edward Comentale and Aaron Jaffe (Indiana University Press, 2014). 1-58.
  • With Matthew Hart, Interview with Tom McCarthy, Contemporary Literature 5:4 (2013).
  • "Modern Novelty." Affirmations: of the modern 1:1 (2013).
  • "Publishing, Patronage and Censorship." A Handbook of Modernisms. Eds. Peter Brooker, Andrzej Gasiorek, Deborah Parsons, and Andrew Thacker (Oxford University Press, 2011).
  • "Orlando Pimpernel." Modernist Star Maps. Eds. Jonathan Goldman and Aaron Jaffe (Ashgate, 2010).
  • "Nothing Risked, Nothing Gained: Richard Powers' Gain and the Horizon of Risk," Transatlantica. February 2010.
  • "Joyce's Afterlives: Why He Didn't Win the Nobel Prize." James Joyce: Visions and Revisions. Ed. Sean Latham (Irish Academic Press, 2009).
  • "Inventing the Radio Cosmopolitan: Vernacular Modernism at a Standstill." Broadcasting Modernism. Eds. Michael Coyle, Debra Rae Cohen, and Jane Lewty (University of Florida Press, 2009).
  • "T.S. Eliot is Boffo!: Celebrity, Obituary, Modernism." A Companion to T. S. Eliot. Ed. David Chinitz (Wiley-Blackwell Press, Oxford, UK, 2009).
  • "Signs Taken for Wonders: The Symptom of Oprah." Religion and Culture Web Forum. The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. University of Chicago Divinity School. April 2009.
  • "Brunswick/Fluxus." The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies. Eds. Edward Comentale and Aaron Jaffe (Indiana University Press, 2009).
  • "The Authenticity of Jargon and Percival Everett's Erasure: A Set with Ten Elements." Percival Everett: Transatlantic Readings. Eds. Claire Maniez and Anne-Laure Tissut (Editions Le Manuscrit, Paris, 2007).
  • "James Bond, Meta-Brand." The Cultural Politics of Ian Fleming and 007,. Eds. Edward Comentale, Clyde Willman, and Stephen Watt (Indiana University Press, 2005).
  • "Adjectives and the Work of Modernism in an Age of Celebrity." The Yale Journal of Criticism 16:1 (2003).
  • "Modernism is Ordinary." Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, 4 (2003.

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • Principal Investigator on Department of State Grant for the Study of the United States. Institute on Contemporary American Literature. (2015, 2016)
  • Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2009-11)

Publications By This Author
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