Dr. James Dowthwaite

I have been teaching at Jena since 2018, having moved to Germany in 2016. My area of research is, currently, aestheticism in the late nineteenth century, but my background is in modernism and the philosophy of language. My habilitation project concerns the treatment of the concept of fate in aestheticism; I look, specifically, at the form of fate in works by The Pre-Raphaelites, Walter Pater, Michael Field, Oscar Wilde, and others. My main interests are form and aesthetics, but I am also interested in the relationship between literature and philosophy and literature and theology, though from the side of the literary. My primary interest is in the literariness of literature, in particular the ways that the literary offers us a lens through which to view human culture and human activity. This encompasses primarily questions of poetics, aesthetics, fictionality, and literary history – though it all touches on broader movements in cultural history as well.

Dowthwaite CVpdf, 275 kb

Monographs

Ezra Pound and 20^th Century Theories of Language: Faith with the Word (Routledge, 2019). Awarded the Ezra Pound Society Book Award; Reviews in Make it New, American Literary Scholarship, and Modernism/modernity.

Edited Collections

With Andrew Gross, Lyrical Populism: A Special Issue of Literary Matters, 15:2 (2023)

Aesthetics: A Special Issue of the New American Studies Journal: A Forum (Forthcoming 2024)

 

Articles in Peer Reviewed Journals

‘The Green Aevum: Deep Time and Useful Fictions between Frank Kermode, Edmund Spenser and Ed Roberson’, Literary Imagination (Forthcoming 2024)

‘Symbolism and Mysticism: The Role of Maurice Maeterlinck in Arthur Symons’s Critical Vision’, CUSP (Forthcoming 2024)

‘Soyinka’s Threnodic Vision: Vitality, Transition, and Colonialism in Death and the King’s Horseman’ in Apocalyptica 8 (Forthcoming, 2024)

‘The Aesthetics of Revenge: Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy and the Post-9/11 Form of Zero Dark Thirty (2012)’ in Aesthetics: A Special Issue of The New American Studies Journal: A Forum (Forthcoming, 2024)

‘Infinite Humble Things: Wallace Stevens and German Impressionism’, The Wallace Stevens Journal, 48:1 (2024)

‘Reading Material: On Materiality and Idealism in Kate Daniels’s ‘Reading a Biography of Thomas Jefferson in the Months of My Son’s Recovery’, ASAP/J, “Poetic Voice and Materiality” (2023)

‘Walter Pater’s Idea of Fate: Aesthetics and Narrative Destiny’, Studies in Walter Pater and Aestheticism, 8 (2023)

‘”Fear God and the Stupidity of the Populace”: Pound, Eliot, and High Modernism between Populism and Esoterism’, Literary Matters, 15:2 (2023)

‘‘‘CRIME Ov two CENturies”: Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory as a Narrative Arc in Ezra Pound’s Cantos”, Amerikastudien/American Studies (2018)

“Edward Sapir and Modernist Poetry: Harriet Monroe, Amy Lowell, H.D., and the Development of Sapir’s Literary Theory”, Modernist Cultures (2019).

"Revised Intentions: James Buchanan and the Antebellum White House in Ezra Pound's Canto CIII" in Commentaries on Ezra Pound’s Thrones de los Cantares. Special Issue of Glossator 10 (2018).

 

Book Chapters:

‘”Flout/ the silent blessing fate’: Love and Fate, from John Keats to Christina Rossetti’, Where Love Happens: The Changing Social Practices of Love in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Lene Ostermark-Johansen (Accepted, Forthcoming 2025)

‘Structure, Freedom, and the Romantic in the Thought of T.E. Hulme, in THE LEGACY OF ROMANTICISM IN ENGLISH MODERNIST LITERATURE: “ENGRAFTED ANEW”, ed. Paolo Bugliani (Forthcoming 2024)

‘Irony and Incongruity in Field’s Treatment of Fate: The Case of Atilla, My Atilla’, ed Ana Parejo Vadilla and Amy Huseby (Forthcoming, 2024)

‘Hymn: from John Donne to Geoffrey Hill’ in The Handbook of Poetic Forms, ed. Jessica Bundschuh and Irmtraud Huber (Forthcoming 2024)

‘Persona, Personae, and The Cantos’ in The Routledge Companion to Ezra Pound, ed. Stephen Yao, Michael Kindellan, and Mark Byron (Forthcoming 2024)

‘Dickens, Decadence, Austria and Germany: Kafka, Meyrink, and Zweig‘ in Dickens and Decadence, ed. Giles Whiteley (Forthcoming, 2024)

‘Persona’ in The Routledge Companion to Poetic Forms, ed. Patrick Gill (2023)

‘Interview: Matthew Feldman’, New American Studies Journal: A Forum, 73 (2022)

‘The Poet as Fate: Schopenhauer’s Literary Vision’. In: IZfK ed. R. Thiel and W. G. Mueller, 5 (2021). 337–358.

‘Ezra Pound’s Theory of Language’ in “Antreten gegen die Welt”: Ezra Pounds Erbe, eds. Theresia Prammer & Christine Vescoli. Lana, Südtirol, 2018.

“Canto XXI” in Readings in the Cantos 1-73 (University of New Orleans Press, 2018)

 

 

Reviews

‘Gaze, Power, Gender: The Figure of the Femme Fatale Reconsidered’, CUSP 3 (2023)

Review: Elizabeth Reichel, Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives: The Poetry and Scholarship of Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict’, American Literary History (2023)

Review of The Cambridge Companion to The Waste Land, ed. Gabriel McIntire, Notes & Queries 66 (2019).

 

Encyclopedia Entries

‘Arthur Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Poetry’ in The Literary Encyclopaedia (Edinburgh University Press, 2023)

[Encyclopaedia Entry] ‘Arthur Symons, Nights and Days’ in The Literary Encyclopaedia (Edinburgh University Press, 2023)

[Encyclopaedia Entry], ‘Arthur Symons, Silhouettes’, in The Literary Encyclopaedia (Edinburgh University Press, 2023)

 

Translations

[Translation] Thomas Fuchs, ‘The uncanny as atmosphere’, in Francesetti, G., Griffero, T. (Eds.). Psychopathology and atmospheres: Neither inside nor outside, 101-118. (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019)

[Translation] Thomas Fuchs, ‘The cyclical time of the body and its relation to linear time’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25 (2018), 47-65.

 

Guest Lectures and Conference Papers

‘Maeterlinck and Mystery’ ALCSW Conference, Houston, TX, 13 October 2023

‘Fate and the Fin de Siecle’, Jena, MADS Conference 29 September 2023

‘Pandemic and Individual Narratives: The Antonine Plague in Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean (1885)’ Anglistentag, Siegen, 24-26 September 2023

Guest Lecture: ‘Love and Fate Amongst the Pre-Raphaelites’, University of Copenhagen, 22-23 September

‘Mina Loy’s Anti-Destiny’, Mapping Mina Loy Studies (Online, 4-5 August, 2023)

‘Ezra Pound and the Ethics of the Archive’, Modernist Difficulties, MSA (online, 28 July 2023)

‘The Concept of Fate in Aestheticist and Decadent Writing’, DACH Victorianists Workshop, Online, 21 July 2023

‘Pound’s Salon Style’, Ezra Pound International Conference, Edinburgh, 27-30 June 2023

‘Pound’s Renaissance: Pater’s Modernist Legacy’ Walter Pater Conference, Oxford, 25-26 June 2023

‘The Chinese Written Character Reconsidered: Pound and Fenollosa’: Guest Lecture at Paris-Diderot, Poetics and Linguistics Research Group, 24 June 2023

‘Unmeaning Profundity: The Concept of Race in Arthur Symons’s Travel Writing’, Symbolism and Travel: An International Symposium Rome, 8-9 June 2023

Guest Lecture ‘Arthur Symons: Aestheticism, Decadence, and the Concept of Fate’, University of Hamburg, 8 May 2023

‘Unmeaning Profundity’: The Concept of Race in Arthur Symons’s Cities (1903), Decadence and Race, an International Online Conference, 31 March-1 April 2023

‘Wallace Stevens’s Debt to German Art’, MLA Conference, San Francisco, 7 January 2023

‘Some Problems of Emerson’s Vision of Fate’, American Studies Colloquium, University of Göttingen, 21 December 2022

‘Walter Pater’s Dialogue with Plato’, ESSE Conference, 29 August – 2 September 2022

‘Pater’s Marius and the Concept of Fate’, Aestheticism, Sensations and Ideas: International Walter Pater Conference, Venice, 14-16 July 2022

‘The Country is Overbrained: Ezra Pound and Robert Musil at the Schwarzwald Salon’, Modernism: Totality and Fragment Conference, Turin, 18-20 May 2022

Roundtable: Contemporary Poetry, EAAS Conference, Madrid, 6-8 April 2022

“Fate, the Rural, and the Aesthetic in the Work Thomas Hardy”, Away from the Centre: Conceptualising the Regional and the Rural (1850-1950), University of Durham, 10 May 2021

‘”Fear God and the Stupidity of the Populace”: Pound, Eliot, and High Modernism between Populism and Esoterism’, Populism and the Arts Symposium, Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., 16-18 August 2019.

 

‘The Waste Land’, Guest Lecture at the University of Goettingen, American Studies Department.

‘“Getting the News from Poems”: Poetry and the Polis in Pound, Williams, and Olson’, Poetry and Populism Symposium, University of Goettingen, 12-14 July

‘The Meaning of Objects: C.K. Ogden, I.A. Richards, and the Revolution of the Word’, Modernist Objects, University of Paris-Sorbonne, 13-16 June 2018.

2018-2023: As part of my position here at Jena, I speak at our colloquium once a semester.

“Faith with the Word: An Introduction to Ezra Pound’s Theory of Language”, Literaturtage Lana, Lana, Italy, 30. August – 2. September 2017

“Modernist Counter-Enlightenments: Conservatism, Populism, and Totalitarianism in early Twentieth Century Literary Culture", Zentrum für Jüdische Studien, Berlin, 2. Mai 2017

"Conservatism and Populism in the Modernist Era: Irving Babbitt, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound" at Cultures of US Conservatism Conference, University of Göttingen, 9-11 February 2017

“Ezra Pound’s Theory of Race”, American Studies Colloquium, University of Göttingen, 11 May 2016.

“Ezra Pound’s Anti-Semitism”, Anglistik Colloquium, Heidelberg University, 18 May 2016

“Ezra Pound’s Cathay”, Modernism 1915-2015, Continuing Education Centre, Wellington House, University of Oxford, 7 February 2015.

“The Place of Philology in Ezra Pound’s Literary Scholarship”, Modernism Now! British Association of Modernist Studies International Conference, 26-28 June 2014, Senate House, University of London. 

“English Philology: A Preliminary Survey of its Role in Graduate Study”, The Humanities in the 21st Century, 21 March 2014, Ertegun House, University of Oxford 

“Canto LII: Usury and China”, London Cantos Reading Group, 13 December 2013, Institute of English Studies, University of London

“Pound/Ogden: High Modernism and Semiotic Theory”, 25th Ezra Pound International Conference Dublin, 10-13 July 2013, Trinity College, Dublin. 

“Symbol-Reference-Referent: the Place of the Object in Early Twentieth Century Linguistics”, Objects: Oxford Graduate Conference, 31 May 2013, University of Oxford 

‘’E Ti Fiammeggio’: Love in Canto 93”, London Cantos Reading Group, 11 December 2012, Institute of English Studies, University of London

‘’The Wind is Part of the Process’: Ezra Pound and the Italian Landscape’, The Association for the Study of Modern Italy Postgraduate Summer School, 28-29 June 2012, University College London. 

2021: “Fate, the Rural, and the Aesthetic in the Work Thomas Hardy”, Away from the Centre: Conceptualising the Regional and the Rural (1850-1950), University of Durham, 10 May

2019: ‘”Fear God and the Stupidity of the Populace”: Pound, Eliot, and High Modernism between Populism and Esoterism’, Populism and the Arts Symposium, Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., 16-18 August

2018: ‘The Waste Land’, Guest Lecture at the University of Goettingen, American Studies Department.

2018: ‘“Getting the News from Poems”: Poetry and the Polis in Pound, Williams, and Olson’, Poetry and Populism Symposium, University of Goettingen, 12-14 July

2018: ‘The Meaning of Objects: C.K. Ogden, I.A. Richards, and the Revolution of the Word’, Modernist Objects, University of Paris-Sorbonne, 13-16 June

2018-2022: As part of my position here at Jena, I speak at our colloquium once a semester.

2017: “Faith with the Word: An Introduction to Ezra Pound’s Theory of Language”, Literaturtage Lana, Lana, Italy, 30. August – 2 September

2017: “Modernist Counter-Enlightenments: Conservatism, Populism, and Totalitarianism in early Twentieth Century Literary Culture", Zentrum für Jüdische Studien, Berlin, 2 May

2017: "Conservatism and Populism in the Modernist Era: Irving Babbitt, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound" at Cultures of US Conservatism Conference, University of Göttingen, 9-11 February

2016: “Ezra Pound’s Theory of Race”, American Studies Colloquium, University of Göttingen, 11 May

2016: “Ezra Pound’s Anti-Semitism”, Anglistik Colloquium, Heidelberg University, 18 May

2015: “Ezra Pound’s Cathay”, Modernism 1915-2015, Continuing Education Centre, Wellington House, University of Oxford, 7 February

2014: “The Place of Philology in Ezra Pound’s Literary Scholarship”, Modernism Now! British Association of Modernist Studies International Conference, 26-28 June, Senate House, University of London

2014: “English Philology: A Preliminary Survey of its Role in Graduate Study”, The Humanities in the 21^st Century, 21 March, Ertegun House, University of Oxford 

2014: “Canto LII: Usury and China”, London Cantos Reading Group, 13 December, Institute of English Studies, University of London

2013: “Pound/Ogden: High Modernism and Semiotic Theory”, 25^th Ezra Pound International Conference Dublin, 10-13 July, Trinity College, Dublin

2013: “Symbol-Reference-Referent: the Place of the Object in Early Twentieth Century Linguistics”, Objects: Oxford Graduate Conference, 31 May, University of Oxford 

2012: ‘’E Ti Fiammeggio’: Love in Canto 93”, London Cantos Reading Group, 11 December, Institute of English Studies, University of London

2012: ‘’The Wind is Part of the Process’: Ezra Pound and the Italian Landscape’, The Association for the Study of Modern Italy Postgraduate Summer School, 28-29 June, University College London

This semester (winter term 2021) I am co-teaching, with Professor Vanderbeke. We have a lecture on Modernism on Mondays, and a related seminar on modernist literature on Wednesdays. Information can be found on Friedolin.

In past semesters, I have taught classes including the following: Modernist Poetry (Pound, Eliot, and H.D.), Introduction to Literary Studies, Literary Theory: a Survey, Didactics, Romanticism: A Survey, Conflicts between Literature and Philosophy, Aestheticism and Decadence, Romanticism, The Fall of the British Empire, Virginia Woolf, New Criticism, Postmodernism,

Next semester:

Introduction to Literary Studies II:

In this class, we will explore the practical side of literary studies, beginning and ending with the reading of texts. We will begin with the analysis of poetry, before moving on to fictional prose, and drama. The focus will be on techniques of close reading, along with an introduction to the principles and practice of literary criticism. The idea is to give students a solid basis for future literary study.

The Tempest and its Legacy:

Shakespeare’s final completed work, The Tempest, has had a literary shelf life as long as that of Hamlet, King Lear, or Romeo and Juliet. In this course, we are going to begin with a detailed look at the play itself. Then we will move on to the various revisits that numerous poets, novelists, directors, and artists have paid it, from Browning to Auden to Derek Jarman. We will look at the legacy of Shakespeare’s play in a wide variety of media: drama, poetry, prose, and film.

In the past I have organised the London Cantos Reading Group, The Queen’s College Oxford Literary Society, have taken part in the Oxford Graduate Committee, and have run a number of reading and writing groups here at Jena.

Assistant Editor, New American Studies Journal

Membership of: Deutsche Anglisten Verband, German Society of English Romanticism, British Association of Modernist Studies, European Association of Modernist Studies

I have also published poetry in Acumen, Allegra, Poetry Salzburg Review, and The French Literary Review, amongst other places.