David R. Sherman

Departments/Programs
Comparative HumanitiesComparative Literature
English
Health: Science, Society, and Policy
Degrees
New York University, Ph.D.New York University, M.A.
University of California, Berkeley, B.A.
Expertise
Global modernism, elegy and the politics of commemoration, public sphere theory, comedy, literature in the criminal justice system, literature and philosophyProfile
David Sherman's research explores modernist literature and culture. In a Strange Room: Modernism's Corpses and Mortal Obligation (2015) addresses literary responses to the sea-change in mortuary and mourning practices during the early twentieth century. He is currently writing a book about literary engagement with secularization, The Machine Stops: Modernism, Human Fungibility, and the Critique of Secular Hope. His other interests include narrative comedy, the politics of elegy, public sphere theory, and the role of literature in the criminal justice system.Courses Taught
COML | 117a | Magical Realism and Modern Myth |
ENG | 58a | Literature and Medicine |
ENG | 78a | Virginia Woolf |
ENG | 107b | Literary Witnessing and the Poetics of Memory |
ENG | 126b | Joyce's Ulysses |
ENG | 131a | Comedy: Literature, Film, and Theory |
ENG | 148a | Inventing Farewell: A Practicum on Elegy |
ENG | 161a | Literature and Counterculture |
ENG | 180b | Romantic Comedy / Matrimonial Tragedy |
ENG | 200a | Approaches to Literary and Cultural Studies |
GSAS | 301d | Interdisciplinary Prospectus Seminar |
HUM/UWS | 2a | Crime and Punishment: Justice and Criminality from Plato to Serial |
Awards and Honors
James T. Arthur Dissertation Fellowship for the Study of Time, New York University (2002 - 2003)
Lind American Literature Fellowship, New York University (2001)
Molberger Fellowship, New York University (2001)
Scholarship
Sherman, David R.. "Chaplin Boxing." Modernism / modernity Print Plus Platform volume 3. cycle 4 (2019)
Sherman, David R.. "“Stransom's Secular Altar, or, James's Pragmatics of Dying”." The Henry James Review 37. 3 (2017): 207-217.
Sherman, David R.. "“Woolf’s Secular Imaginary”." Modernism / modernity 23. 4 (2017): 711-732.
Sherman, David R. "'The Being that Thinks in Us': Woolf and the Aesthetics of Self-Alarm." Le Tour Critique 2. (2014): 369-377.
Sherman, David R. In a Strange Room: Modernism's Corpses and Mortal Obligation. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Sherman, David R. "Derek Walcott's 'A Far Cry from Africa' and 'Midsummer'." The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry, 1900 to the Present. 2009.
Sherman, David R.. ""Is Narrative Fundamental?" Beckett's Levinasian Question in Malone Dies." Journal of Modern Literature 32. 4 (2009).
Sherman, David R. "Elegy under the Knife: Geoffrey Hill and the Ethics of Sacrifice." Twentieth-Century Literature 54.2. (2008).
Sherman, David R. "A Plot Unraveling into Ethics: Woolf, Levinas, and 'Time Passes.'." Woolf Studies Annual 13. (2007).
Sherman, David R. "Burial Plots, Inoperative Community, and Faulkner's As I lay Dying." Theory@Buffalo 11. (2007).
Sherman, David R. and Fritz, Holly. "The Academic Job Crisis and the Small Schools Movement." MLA Profession (2001).