Jay Clayton
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor, Department of English
Jay Clayton received his B.A. from Yale University and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Before coming to Vanderbilt, he taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he received the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award. At Vanderbilt, he teaches courses in contemporary American literature; genetics in literature, film, and media; Victorian fiction; hypermedia and online gaming; and literary theory.
His current research involves the ethical and social issues raised by genetics as they appear in literature and films. He has lectured on genetics and literature at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH, the English Institute, the MLA, the Narrative Society, Society for Literature and Science, and medical schools around the country.
Representative publications
BOOKS
- Charles Dickens in Cyberspace: The Afterlife of the Nineteenth Century in Postmodern Culture (Oxford University Press, 2003)
- The Pleasures of Babel: Contemporary American Literature and Theory (Oxford University Press, 1993)
- Romantic Vision and the Novel (Cambridge University Press, 1987)
EDITED VOLUMES
- Time and the Literary. Ed. with Karen Newman and Marianne Hirsch. (Routledge, 2002)
- Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History. Ed. with Eric Rothstein. (University of Wisonsin Press, 1991)
SELECTED ARTICLES
- "Literature and Science Policy: A New Project for the Humanities," PMLA
- "Victorian Chimeras, or, What Literature Can Contribute to Genetics Policy Today," New Literary History
- "Frankenstein's Futurity: Clones, Replicants, and Robots" in The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley
- "Convergence of the Two Cultures: A Geek's Guide to Contemporary Literature, American Literature"
- "The Voice in the Machine: Hazlitt, Hardy, James" in Language Machines: Technologies of Literary and Cultural Production
- "Genome Time" in Time and the Literary
- "Concealed Circuits: Frankenstein's Monster, the Medusa, and the Cyborg," Raritan
- "Narrative and Theories of Desire," Critical Inquiry