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R. Gordon Kelly

Graduate students in American Studies will find professors from a diversity of disciplines from among our substantial group of faculty affiliates.

Dr. R . Gordon Kelly is Director of Undergraduate Studies

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Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
301.405.1356
rgkelly@umd.edu

R. Gordon Kelly is a Professor in the Department, and his research interests center on two closely related issues in cultural studies. The first has to do with conceptualizing the factors, and their relationships, that both enable and constrain the production, distribution, selective transmission, and reception of literature, broadly conceived. Such a framework should be adequate theoretically, i.e. e. in terms of comprehensiveness and coherence, as well as empirically, i.e. e. consistent with the known particulars. The second issue has to do with the uses of literary works as evidence in the service of cultural analysis. Dr. Kelly is currently working on a book-length manuscript entitled “Does It Hurt to be Bombed?”: Writing for Children During World War II. Beginning in Summer 2009, Dr. Kelly will become the director of undergraduate studies in the Department.

Degrees:

Ph.D. American Civilization (University of Iowa, 1970)
M.A. English & American Literature (Claremont Graduate School, 1962)
B.A. English (DePauw University, 1961)

Publications:

• "Children's Literature" and "Historical Fiction" in Handbook of American Popular Culture, ed. M. Thomas Inge (Greenwood Press, 1988).
• Edited Children's Periodicals of the United States (Greenwood Press, 1984).
• Mystery Fiction and Modern Life. University Press of Mississippi, 1998.
• "Literary and Cultural Values in the Evaluation of Children's Literature." The Advocate 4 (Winter 1985): 84-100.
• "The Social Construction of Reality: Implications for Future Directions in American Studies." Prospects 8 (1984): 40-47.
• "Literature and the Historian." American Quarterly 26 (1974): 141-59.
• Mother Was a Lady: Self and Society in Selected American Children's Periodicals, 1865-1890. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974.

Courses Taught:

Identity in American Culture (undergraduate)
Growing Up American (undergraduate)
Literature and Society (undergraduate and graduate)
Critics of American Culture (undergraduate)

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