Marianna Torgovnick, Professor of English
Marianna Torgovnick writes on the novel and novel theory, film, postcolonialism, modernism, and the twentieth century more generally, and especially on contemporary American culture. Her work is broadly interdisciplinary and has been taught in Art History, Anthropology, and Religion courses as well as English, Literature, and Theory. She has published Closure in the Novel (Princeton, 1981), and The Visual Arts, Pictorialism, and the Novel: James, Lawrence, and Woolf (Princeton, 1985), Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago, 1990), and Crossing Ocean Parkway (Chicago, 1994), for which she won an American Book Award, and Primitive Passions: Men, Women, and the Quest for Ecstasy (Knopf, 1997; paperback Chicago, 1998) and The War Complex: World War II in Our Time, about memories and perceptions of the Second War World in the Twenty First Century. She has also written series of articles for general interest publications. Professor Torgovnick currently directs The Duke in New York Arts and Media Program, taught in New York. She returns to teach America Dreams American Movies to a large enrollment each year. For more information, visit her website www.mariannatorgovnick.com
| Office Location: | 302E Allen Bldg, Durham, NC 27708 |
| Office Phone: | (919) 684-2741 |
| Email Address: |   |
| Web Page: | http://ami.duke.edu/~marianna.torgovnick |
- Office Hours:
Fall 2022 Semester:
By appointment on Tuesdays and Thursday 3:00-4:00 pm (304E Allen or by Zoom)
- Education:
Ph.D. Columbia University 1975 M.A. Columbia University 1971 B.A. New York University 1970
- Specialties:
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American Literature
Modern to Contemporary
Novels
Postcolonial Literature
British Literature
Other
- Research Interests: American Literature and Film; Contemporary Novel; Modernist Studies
Marianna Torgovnick writes about 20th and 21st-century arts and culture, with an emphasis on literature and visual forms such as photography, painting, and film. She has published two books on primitivism, including the acclaimed Gone Primitive and projects a third volume in the future. She is also a memoirist and cultural critic, most notably in her award-winning Crossing Ocean Parkway and its sequel (in progress) “Crossing Back: A Modernist Reads the Classics.” Other interests include Contemporary Fiction and contemporary American life.
- Recent Publications
(More Publications)
- Torgovnick, M, Me Thiele, You Tarzan, in Enchanted by Cinema Wilhelm Thiele Between Vienna Berlin and Hollywood (May, 2024), pp. 184-198 [doi] .
- McLeod, A, Tenderness, D.H. Lawrence Review (2023) .
- Torgovnick, M, Bomb and Climate Change in Fact and Fiction, New American Studies Journal, vol. 73 (December, 2022), Universitatsverlag Gottingen [doi] [abs].
- Torgovnick, MDM, Crossing Back Books, Family, and Memory without Pain (September, 2021), pp. 138 pages, Fordham University Press [abs].
- Torgovnick, M, Recipe for Memory, Los Angeles Review of Books (September, 2021), Avidly .