Visiting Assistant Professor
Fields: 20th and 21st Century Anglo-American literature; environmental humanities and ecocriticism; Anthropocene studies; science/speculative fiction
Email: pwhitmarsh@holycross.edu
Office: Fenwick 211
Office Hours: MW 12:15-1:30, T by appt.Â
I am a scholar and teacher of modern and contemporary literature, with special interests in the modern novel, the relationship between the novel and genre fiction (such as science fiction and the gothic), and intersections of literary and environmental history. My first book, , was published in April 2023 as part of the series at Stanford University Press. The book argues that spatial descriptions across several post-1960 novels are preoccupied with verticality, imagining the earth from above (as in the views of astronauts or air travelers) and below (from spaces such as mine shafts, boreholes, and landfills). These descriptions find affinity with emerging perspectives in the sciences after World War II and alert their readers to the expanding planetary crises humanity faces in the period known as the Anthropocene—a period defined by increased attention to anthropogenic effects on planetary climate and geology. You can on H-Environment. Excerpts have also appeared in the journals Contemporary Literature and Modern Fiction Studies.
I'm currently working on a project studying modern transformations in genre fiction and the novel alongside concurrent developments in imperialization and environmental crisis.
Selected Publications
Book:
Writing Our Extinction: Anthropocene Fiction and Vertical Science. Stanford University Press, 2023.
Articles:
"The Earth in Contemporary Fiction and Science." Forthcoming in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. Oxford University Press, 2024.
Studies in American Fiction, vol. 50, no. 1 (2024).
Contemporary Literature, vol. 62, no. 3 (2021).
Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 67, no. 4 (2021).
Courses Taught
ENGL 100: Introduction to Literary Study (Road Narratives)
ENGL 366: The Modern British Novel
ENGL 399: The Modern American Novel