This September, Dr. Chris Hall, assistant professor of English at University of the Ozarks, received a contract for his first scholarly monograph from the University of South Carolina Press. The book, which is entitled “The Biopolitics of Global Modernism: Vital Hospitality in Twentieth-Century Literature,“ is scheduled for publication in fall 2027.
The project has its roots in Hall’s Ph.D. research into how modern literary cultures in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the U.S. can be understood through the theoretical framework of biopolitics, which analyzes the ways life is organized into categories for state management. The book features chapters on species, gender, race, and birth, bringing together modernist studies’ emphasis on experimental transatlantic literature of the early 20th century with a postcolonial approach that engages cultural and critical responses to imperialism later in the 1900s.
Revising and expanding the manuscript for publication has been one of Hall’s key scholarly projects since joining Ozarks in 2021, and in classes on African Literature, Caribbean Literature, and British Modernism he has worked closely with students on texts and themes from the project, developing the book’s approach through his work in the classroom, which has in turn enriched the content of his courses by involving students in current scholarly conversations in the humanities surrounding identity, literary history, ethics, and much more.
The book’s forthcoming release builds upon the 2023 publication of its first chapter in the scholarly journal Twentieth-Century Literature, and lays the groundwork for Hall’s current research on the politics of identity in literature, video games, comics, and film, which he has explored in a series of articles and presentations over the past few years.
His planned second book examining these concerns was begun during a fall 2023 research leave semester at Ozarks, and an early chapter of that manuscript was published in the long-running journal Criticism in 2024.
In the coming years, Hall looks forward to developing these and other publication projects in ways that bring faculty research into the classroom, furthering the collaborative project of original knowledge production and innovative teaching at Ozarks.
Topics: Faculty Spotlights