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Professor Chris Ackerley
MA (Cant) PhD (Tor)
The Malcolm Lowry Project: Under the Volcano
The Beckett Monad (build-up and final form) [QuickTime video files]
| chris.ackerley@otago.ac.nz | |
| Phone | 64 3 479 8630 |
| Office | 1N11 First Floor Arts Building Albany Street Dunedin |
Expertise
My field is Modernism, with expertise in Malcolm Lowry and Samuel Beckett, and research interests in Nabokov, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, J. G. Farrell, Borges and Roa Bastos. My research speciality is Annotation.
Teaching
ENGL 121 English Literature: A Survey
ENGL 250 Special Topic: Irish Literature in English
Possible Supervision
I am willing to supervise sensible theses on the above authors, but also on some aspects of Irish Literature or Literature and Science (but not Science Fiction). I have annotated Lowry and Beckett extensively, and while interested in all aspects of these authors I am also willing to supervise editorial and/or annotation projects on other texts and writers. Theoretical orientation: I am unsympathetic to what Alan Sokal calls the "intellectual impostures" of Post-Modernism, but I am at ease with genetic criticism, although most of my research interrogates or reflects the principles and problems of validity in interpretation.
Current Research
My current major projects are:
(1) a study of Samuel Beckett and Science (London: Continuum P);
(2) annotating three works by Malcolm Lowry: (i) a long-lost but newly-discovered novel, In Ballast to the White Sea, (ii) the 1940 Volcano, and (iii) Swinging the Maelstrom; as part of the EMiC (Editing Manuscripts in Canada) project, in association with the U Ottawa Press;
(3) a Marsden-funded study of the Modernist aesthetic, with reference to its Medieval roots and traditions, in association with the Centre for Modernism and Christianity (University of Bergen).
I am an editor of the Journal of Beckett Studies, and on the advisory boards of Samuel Beckett Today (Amsterdam), Historicising Modernism (London: Continuum P), Modernism and Christianity (U Bergen), Otago French Notes (U Otago), and the Ionesco-Beckett Research Centre (National University of Theatre and Cinematography, Bucharest).
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Selected Publications (other works)
Books
Beckett, Samuel. Watt, edited with an introduction by C. J. Ackerley. London: Faber, 2009, xix + 223 pp.
Obscure Locks, Simple Keys: The Annotated Watt. Tallahassee, Fl: Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2005, vii + 292 pp.
- as a special double issue of the Journal of Beckett Studies 14.1 & 14.2, 2004/2005
- rpt., Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2010
The Grove Press Companion to Samuel Beckett, co-authored with Stanley E. Gontarski, Grove Press (New York). 2004, 720pp.
- Republished as The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett (revised edition). London: Faber and Faber, 2006.
Demented Particulars: the Annotated Murphy. Tallahassee, Fl.: Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 1998, xxvi + 255 pp.
- as a special double issue of the Journal of Beckett Studies 7.1 & 7.2, 1997/1998
- 2nd ed., rev., Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2004
- rpt., Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2010
A Companion to Under the Volcano, co-authored with Lawrence J. Clipper, University of British Columbia Press, 1984, 476 pp.
A History of the Otago Bridge Club. Dunedin: John McIndoe, 1996, 372 pp. (200+ illustrations)
Book Chapters
'Annotations' to Malcolm Lowry's Swinging the Maelstrom', ed. Victor Doyen. Forthcoming, Ottawa: U Ottawa P [in association with EMiC], 95-156.
[with Patrick A. McCarthy] 'Annotating Malcolm Lowry's In Ballast to the White Sea'. Forthcoming in Essays in Canadian Writing [in association with EMiC], ed. Dean Irvine (Toronto: U Toronto P, 2012).
'Religion (the Bible)'. Forthcoming in Samuel Beckett in Context, ed. Anthony Uhlmann (Cambridge: CUP, 2012).
'Samuel Beckett and Faber & Faber'. In Samuel Beckett and Book History / Publishing, ed. Mark Nixon. London: British Library (2011), 171-86. [ISBN 978-071238262]
'"Style: Coetzee and Beckett'. In Awakening the Countervoices: A Companion to the Works of J.M. Coetzee, ed. Tim Mehigan. Rochester, NY: Camden House (2011), 23-38. [ISBN-13: 978-1-57113-507-0]
'Samuel Beckett and Science'. In The Blackwell Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. S.E. Gontarski. London: Blackwell, 2010. 143-64 [ISBN 978-1405158695] Depiction of the Monad (build-up and final form)
'Samuel Beckett and Annotation: The Horizon of Relevant Knowledge'. In Beckett and Phenomenology, ed. Matthew Feldman & Ulrika Maude. London: Continuum Books, 2009. 194-207. [ISBN: 978-0-8264-9714-7]
[with Russell Smith] 'Samuel Beckett's Reception in Australia and New Zealand'. In International Reception of Samuel Beckett, ed. Matthew Feldman & Mark Nixon. London: Continuum [Continuum Reception Studies], 2009. 108-28. [ISBN: 978-0-8264-9581-5]
'Samuel Beckett and Anthropomorphic Insolence'. In All Sturm and No Drang, with Beckett and Romanticism, ed. Dirk van Hulle & Mark Nixon [Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui 18]. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. 77-90. [ISBN-10: 904-202-3015]
'Paradise Street Blues: Malcolm Lowry's Liverpool'. In Writing Liverpool: Essays and Interviews, ed. Deryn Rees-Jones & Michael Murphy. Liverpool: Liverpool U P, 2007. 57-72. [ISBN: 978-1-84631-073-7]
'Samuel Beckett and Max Nordau: Degeneration, Sausage-Poisoning, the Bloody Rafflesia, Coenaesthesia, and the Not-I'. In Beckett after Beckett, ed. S.E. Gontarski & Anthony Uhlmann. Gainesville, Fl: U P of Florida, 2006. 167-76 [ISBN 0-8130-2909-0]
[with S. E. Gontarski, co-author], 'Samuel Beckett's Watt'. In A Companion to the British and Irish Novel, 1945-2000, ed. Brian Shaffer. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 227-40 [ISBN 1-405113-7858]
'A Fox in the Dongeon: The Presence of Malcolm Lowry in the Early Fiction of J.G. Farrell'. In J.G. Farrell: The Critical Grip, ed. Ralph Crane. Dublin & Portland, Or: Four Courts Press, 1999. 19-35 [ISBN: 1-85182-246-1]
The Collected Poetry of Malcolm Lowry, edited and introduced by Kathleen Scherf, with explanatory annotation by Chris Ackerley. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992, 418 pp (annotation, 227-315) [ISBN 0-7748-0362-2]
Articles
'Éléments recyclés dans Words and Music / Paroles et musique'. Forthcoming in Série Samuel Beckett (Éditions lettres modernes Minard) 2, Paris (2011).
'"primeval mud impenetrable dark": Towards an Annotation of Samuel Beckett's Comment c'est / How It Is.' Modernism / Modernity 18.4 (2011): 1-12.
'Monadology: Samuel Beckett and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz'. Sofia Philosophical Review V.1 [special issue, Beckett/Philosophy] (2011): 122-45.
'"Delight in swine's draff": Husks and Lees, Sugarbeet Pulp and Roses in Samuel Beckett's "Draff".' Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui 22 (2010): 39-50.
'The Ideal Real: A Frustrated Impulse in Samuel Beckett's Writing'. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui 21 (2009): 59-72.
"Ever Know What Happened?": Shades and Echoes in Samuel Beckett's Plays for Television'. Journal of Beckett Studies n.s. 18.1&2 (2009): 136-64.
'Fairy-tales and Flagellation: Samuel Beckett's "Sanies II"'. Fulcrum 6 (2008): 145-64
'"The Last Ditch": Shades of Swift in Samuel Beckett's "Fingal"'. Eighteenth-Century Life 32.2 (Spring 2008): 60-67
'Human Wishes: Samuels Beckett and Johnson'. The Johnson Society of Australia Papers 9 (Aug. 2007): 7-28 [the David Fleeman Memorial Lecture (2005)].
'What's Watt? Towards the Definition of a Text'. In Versions and Interpretations (ALW-Cahier 26), ed. Dirk van Hulle, Marcel De Smedt & Yves T'Sjoen (Leven: Vlaamse Vereniging voor Algemene en Vergelijkende Literatuurwetenschap [VAL]), 2006: 17-32.
'Inorganic Form: Samuel Beckett's Nature'. AUMLA 104 (Nov. 2005): 1-20
'Manifold Memory: Augusto Roa Bastos's Yo, el Supremo and Samuel Beckett's Malone meurt'. IXQUIC: Revista Hispánica Internacional de Análisis y Creación 5 (febrero de 2004): 132-44
'"Perfection is Not of This World": Samuel Beckett and Mysticism'. Mystics Quarterly 30.1-2 (March-June 2004): 28-55
'"Plenty of Obscure Points": A Supplement to A Companion to Under the Volcano'. The Malcolm Lowry Review 49 & 50 (Fall 2001 & Spring 2002): 12-142
'Samuel Beckett and Thomas à Kempis: The Roots of Quietism'. Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui 9 (2000): 81-92
'Samuel Beckett and the Bible: A Guide'. Journal of Beckett Studies n.s. 9.1 (Autumn 1999): 53-125
'"Do Not Despair": Samuel Beckett and Robert Greene'. Journal of Beckett Studies n.s. 6.1 (Autumn 1996): 119-24
'Pale Fire: Three Notes toward a Thetic Solution'. Nabokov Studies 2 (July 1995): 86-102
'The Unnamable's First Voice'. Journal of Beckett Studies n.s. 2.2 (Spring 1993): 53-58
Miscellaneous
‘A Hypertextual Companion to Under the Volcano’
2006; revised 2010 to include the 1982 Companion to Under the Volcano and my 2002 ‘Plenty of Obscure Points’, and linking the commentary to some 500 illustrations. Further revised and expanded, 2011 (revised text with 700+ illustrations).