Gary M. Ciuba
Biography
Included among the courses Dr. Ciuba teaches are:
- Modern Fiction of the U.S. South
- Modern Southern Drama
- American Literature 1945-Present
- American Drama, Major Modern Writers
- Introduction to Technical Writing
- College Writing I and II
Gary M. Ciuba is Professor of English at Kent State University. His research and teaching interests include Fiction and Drama of the U.S. South, Religion and Literature, Violence and Literature, and Deafness Studies. His book Desire, Violence, and Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction won the C. Hugh Holman Award (from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature) for the year’s best work of literary criticism. He is a member of the Editorial Board of The Flannery O’Connor Review and was one of the seminar leaders for the 2014 NEH summer study on O’Connor in Milledgeville, GA. His research currently focuses on the literary representation of D/deafness in modern fiction of the U.S. South.
BOOKS
Desire, Violence, and Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction: Katherine Anne Porter,
Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 2007. 287 pages. Paperback reissue in 2012.
Walker Percy: Books of Revelations. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991. 332
pages. Paperback reissue in 2010.
BOOK CHAPTERS
*”School for Sanctity: O’Connor, Illich, and the Politics of Benevolence.” A Political
Companion to Flannery O’Conner. Ed. Henry J. Edmonson. Lexington: University Press
of Kentucky, 2017. 222-250.
*“‘Not His Son’: Violent Kinship and the Spirit of Adoption in The Violent Bear It Away.”
Dark Faith: New Essays on The Violent Bear It Away. Ed. Susan Srigley. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. 57-86.
*“The Snake and the Rosary: Violence and the Culture of Piety in Sheila Bosworth's Slow
Poison.” The World is Our Home: Society and Culture in Contemporary Southern
Writing. Ed. Jeffrey J. Folks and Nancy Summer Folks. Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2000. 53-72.
*“McCarthy’s Enfant Terrible: Mimetic Desire and Sacred Violence in Child of God.”
Sacred Violence: A Reader’s Companion to Cormac McCarthy. Ed. Wade Hall and Rick
Wallach. El Paso: Texas Western Press/University of Texas, 1995. 77-85.
*“Walker Percy's Enchanted Mountain.” Walker Percy: Novelist and Philosopher.
Introduction by Walker Percy. Ed. Jan Nordby Gretlund and Karl-Heinz Westarp.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991. 13-23.
RECENT ARTICLES
“Exposing the Victim and Victimizing the Exposé: Persecution and Parody in O’Connor’s
“The Partridge Festival.” Flannery O’Connor Review 13 (2015): 60-77.
*“‘To the Hard of Hearing You Shout’: Flannery O’Connor and the Imagination of
Deafness.” Flannery O’Connor Review 10 (2012): 1-18.
*“Living in a ‘World of Others’ Words’: Teaching Morrison and Faulkner.”Proteus: A
Journal of Ideas 21.2 (Fall 2004): 13-20.
*“Ransom’s God Without Thunder: Remythologizing Violence and Poeticizing the Sacred.”
Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. 10 (2003): 40-60.
Education
Publications
- Desire, Violence, and Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction: Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. 287 pages. Paperback reissue in 2012.
- Walker Percy: Books of Revelations. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991. 332 pages. Paperback reissue in 2010.
- ”School for Sanctity: O’Connor, Illich, and the Politics of Benevolence.” A Political Companion to Flannery O’Conner. Ed. Henry J. Edmonson. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017. 222-250.
- “‘Not His Son’: Violent Kinship and the Spirit of Adoption in The Violent Bear It Away.” Dark Faith: New Essays on The Violent Bear It Away. Ed. Susan Srigley. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. 57-86.
- *“‘To the Hard of Hearing You Shout’: Flannery O’Connor and the Imagination of Deafness.” Flannery O’Connor Review 10 (2012): 1-18.
- *“Living in a ‘World of Others’ Words’: Teaching Morrison and Faulkner.” Proteus: A Journal of Ideas 21.2 (Fall 2004): 13-20.
- *“Ransom’s God Without Thunder: Remythologizing Violence and Poeticizing the Sacred.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. 10 (2003): 40-60.
- *“ 'Like a Boulder Blocking Your Path': Scandal and Skandalon in Flannery O'Connor.” The Flannery O'Connor Bulletin 26-27 (1999-2000): 1-23.
- *“The Worm Against the Word: The Hermeneutical Challenge in Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine.” African American Review 34.1 (2000): 119-33.
Awards/Achievements
- “Alum-inary,” Fordham University, Distinguished Alumnus, Department of English, 2009.
- C. Hugh Holman Award for Desire, Violence, and Dignity in Modern Southern Fiction, given by the Society for the Study of Southern Literature to the best work in Southern literary criticism, 2008.