Dr Doug Haynes

Biography

Qualifications

DPhil American Literature, University of Sussex UK, 2004;

MA Fine Art, Brighton University UK;

MA Culture and Social Change, Southampton University UK;

BA English Literature, Southampton University UK.

Employment

University of Sussex, Lecturer in American Literature, 2005 until present;

University of Sussex, Lecturer, Fixed term contract 2003-5;

Goldsmiths College, University of London, Visiting Lecturer 2002-3;

University of Southampton, Department of English, Lecturer, Fixed term contract 2001-2.

Selected Conference and Research Papers:

2013 BAAS Conference, Exeter, "Bret Ellis's Open Secret: Ideology and Affect."

2013 Invited Speaker, Transatlantic Literature Seminar, University of Oxford, ‘“Gravity Rushes Through Him’: Volk  and Fetish in Pynchon’s Rilke.”

2013 Invited Speaker, Centre for American Studies, University of Kent, “The Souls of White Folk: ‘Artificial Niggers in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction.”

2012 British Association of American Studies, University of Manchester, “Displaced Persons in Flannery O’Connor.”

2012 Symposium: Low Affect, High Stakes, University of Sussex, 'Obstacles: Cruel Optimism or Kind Pessimism?'

2012 Material Meanings, 3^rd Conference of EAM, University of Kent, “Turning On Surrealism.”

2012 Invited Speaker, Pynchon Now, Contemporary Fiction Seminar, Senate House, University of London, “Golden Fang, Golden Hoard.”

2012 Invited Speaker, English Colloquium, School of English, University of Sussex, ‘“The Fetish in Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.”

2012 Invited Speaker, Research Seminar, Center for Social and Political Thought, University of Sussex, “The Mind of Odysseus: Adorno, Feeling, Happiness.”

2011 Revelation and convergence: Flannery O'Connor among the Philosophers and Theologians, Loyola University Chicago, “Displaced Persons: Unhappy Consciousness in Flannery O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger.”’

2011 International Critical Theory Conference of Rome, John Felice Rome Center of Loyola University Chicago, Rome, “Adorno and the Possibility of Happiness.”

2011 British Association of American Studies, University of Central Lancashire, “Under the Beach, the Paving Stones.”

2011 Invited Speaker, Research Seminar, Department of American Studies, University of Sussex, “She Disappeared into Complete Silence: Bathos in Louise Bourgeois.”

2010 Invited Speaker, Faculty of Arts, University of Antwerp, Belgium, “Reading Pynchon, Reading Rilke.”

2010 International Pynchon Week, Marie Curie University, Lublin, Poland, “Inherent Virtue, Inherent Vice.”

2009 Invited Speaker, Brighton Museum, “Louise Bourgeois: Femme et Maison.”

2007 Real Things: Matter, Materiality, Representation, University of York, “Wyndham Lewis: the Great Ape Floored.”

2007 British Association of American Studies, University of Leicester, “Laughing at the Laugh: Nathanael West’s Balso Snell.”

2007 Representing the Everyday in American Visual Culture, University of Nottingham, “Mike Kelley: Abjection? Objection!”

2006 American Humor Studies Association Conference, Monteleone Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana, “Nathanael West: Avant-Garde Onanist”

2003 Invited Speaker, Research Seminar, Dept of American Studies, University of Sussex, “Black Humour in Mass Culture: the Badass, Pynchon’s Big Rocket Book and the Avant-Garde.”

1999 Border Crossings, University of Sussex, “Thomas Pynchon: A Literature of Excess”

In addition I provide regular talks to pre-University students at Bhasvic College, Brighton.

Publications:

The Persistence of Irony: Interfering With Surrealist Humour, Textual Practice, 20 (1) 2006. pp. 25-47.

Laughing at the Laugh: Unhappy Consciousness in Nathanael West’s The Dream Life of Balso Snell, Modern Language Review, 102 (2) 2007, pp. 341-362.

Reprinted in Short Story Criticism, Gale Cengage

She Disappeared into Unhappy Consciousness: Louise Bourgeois and the Bathos of Surrealism, in Bathos, eds Peter Nicholls and Sara Crangle (London: Continuum, 2010), pp. 90-111.

Gravity Rushes Through Him: Volk and Fetish in Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Modern Fiction Studies,58 (2) (2012), pp. 308-333

Forthcoming in 2013:

Under the Beach, the Paving Stones: the Fate of Fordism in Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction.

Mike Kelley: Bathos, Abjection, Quotidian, Everyday Life, eds Mark Rawlinson and John Fagg (Liverpool: LUP, 2013).

The Mind of Odysseus: Adorno, Thinking, Feeling, The Affects of Modernism, ed. Julie Taylor (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013)

In preparation:

The Souls of White Folk: ‘Artificial Niggers in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction.

In further preparation: 

Monograph - Disappear Here: Dark Humor and Unhappy Consciousness in Modern American Culture.

Conference organization:

Thinking Feeling: Critical Theory, Thinking, Feeling, 2012, University of Sussex.

A large, successful international conference focusing on the dialogue between Critical Theory and affect theory.

Guest speakers included Eva Illouz, Hebrew University; Ben Highmore, University of Sussex; Tim Bewes, Brown University; Alex Duttmann, Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Esteem and Professional Bodies:

Editor of online open access journal Orbit: Readings Around Pynchon.

Reader for journals: Textual Practice, Journal of American Studies,  and Mosaic, in Canada. Also for Cambridge University Press.

Reader for Research Fellowship in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Girton College, Cambridge.

Voted onto the Executive Committee of the British Association of American Studies, 2013.

Editor of ABES (Annotated Bibliography of English Studies) for Routledge, 2007-9.

Doctoral Students

I have supervised doctoral students to completion on a number of subjects, generally on modern American literary topics. I welcome applications that concern writers who fit uneasily into categories, like Nathanael West, Thomas Pynchon, or Marilynne Robinson; I have a particular interest in reading such writers in terms of economy, affect, or everyday life. I have also supervised many projects on post 9/11 fiction.

Role

I am a lecturer in American Literature. Please click the other tabs on this page to find out more about my work.

I am Admissions Tutor for American Studies in the School of History, Art History, and Philosophy (HAHP).

I am also a member of the Graduate Studies Committee of the School of English

Research Interests

Keywords: Thomas Pynchon; humour/humor; affect; critical theory

I am a lecturer in American Literature. My research interests focus primarily on the dialogue between modern American culture (especially literature and visual art) and Critical Theory - the tradition of thought based on the ideas of Hegel, Marx, and Freud. 

My key focus is currently the reworking of the old idea of "black humour," to bring it back to critical currency. The writers and artists I've thought about in this way are: Thomas Pynchon, Nathanael West, Bret Easton Ellis, Flannery O'Connor, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, and Louise Bourgeois. There are many more.

I wrote my doctorate on Thomas Pynchon, so his work is always uppermost in my mind. I welcome any research students interested in working on new aspects of his work. I have successfully supervised a number of PhD students on Pynchon and other contemporary American writers. I am also an editor of Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon, an online, open-access journal that has taken the place of Pynchon Notes as the go-to journal for Pynchon studies.

Currently my attention is also moving between my ideas on black humour and ideas of affect. Affect theory has been around for a few years now, driven by psychoanalysis and the work of writers like Deleuze. But as the economic system of the world melts down and the heat is on, now seems like a good time to reconsider affect in the light of both critical theory, for a more politicized and socialized sense of what affect might be, and in the light of what disciplines like neuroscience might offer to our ideas about feeling. I hope to set up some inter-disciplinary research events around Sussex, exploring some of these interfaces.

Qualifications

DPhil American Literature, University of Sussex UK, 2004;

MA Fine Art, Brighton University UK;

MA Culture and Social Change, Southampton University UK;

BA English Literature, Southampton University UK.

Employment

University of Sussex, Lecturer in American Literature, 2005 until present;

University of Sussex, Lecturer, Fixed term contract 2003-5;

Goldsmiths College, University of London, Visiting Lecturer 2002-3;

University of Southampton, Department of English, Lecturer, Fixed term contract 2001-2.

office hour Tuesday 2-4

Haynes, Douglas (2013) Mike Kelley: bathos, abjection, quotidian. In: The everyday in twentieth century American visual culture. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool. (In Press)

Haynes, Douglas (2013) Under the beach, the paving stones! The fate of Fordism in Pynchon's 'Inherent vice'. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. (In Press)

Haynes, Douglas (2012) "Gravity rushes through him": volk and fetish in Pynchon's Rilke. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 58 (2). pp. 308-333. ISSN 0026-7724

Haynes, Doug (2010) She disappeared into unhappy consciousness: Louise Bourgeois and the bathos of surrealism. In: On bathos. Continuum, pp. 90-111. ISBN 9781441105073

Haynes, Doug (2007) 'Laughing at the laugh': unhappy consciousness in Nathanael West's 'the dream life of Balso Snell'. Modern Language Review, 102 (2). pp. 341-362. ISSN 0026-7937

Haynes, Doug (2006) The persistence of irony: interfering with surrealist black humour. Textual Practice, 20 (1). pp. 25-47. ISSN 0950-236X