Accomplishments: Department of English

Roberto Lovato (English) appeared on the popular Bitchuation Room podcast, where he talked about, among other things, the role of trauma and forgetting in enabling fascism, writing a memoir about "unforgetting," and U.S. foreign and immigration policy
Professor Roberto Lovato (English) was mentioned in a Los Angeles Times' piece about author Myrian Gurba, with whom he led the #Dignidadliteraria campaign that challenged U.S. publishing in 2020.
Gary Totten (English) has published an article, "Newland Archer's Crisis of (Im)mobility: Gendered Routes of Travel in The Age of Innocence," in the fall 2023 issue of the journal American Literary Realism. The article examines how the writer Edith Wharton's own travel experiences inform her portrayal of gender, travel, and…
The official book trailer for Hammer of the Dogs: A Novel by Jarret Keene (English) can now be viewed on YouTube. Set in the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Hammer of the Dogs is a literary dystopian adventure filled with high-octane fun starring 21-year-old Lash. With her high-tech skill set and warrior mentality, Lash is a…
Professor Roberto Lovato (English) was interviewed by the El Tecolote podcast about the San Francisco Chronicle's racist reporting on Hondurans in San Francisco.
Gary Totten (English) has published the article, "Edith Wharton's Island Ecologies and The Cruise of the Vanadis," in the journal Edith Wharton Review. Totten examines what readers learn about the U.S. writer Edith Wharton’s view of island ecosystems in her 1888 diary of her Aegean cruise, The Cruise of the Vanadis, when we approach…
John M. Bowers (English) has published his latest novel LEGION OF THE DAGGERSTONE on Amazon KDP. The novel has as its hero a 21st-century J. R. R. Tolkien. Like the author of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. Tolliver is an English professor specializing in ancient languages – only at UVA instead of Oxford. Like Tolkien, he was an officer…
Professor Roberto Lovato (English) was recognized in the Los Angeles Times for his coinage of the term, "the folklórico-industrial complex," which refers to the colorful, but shallow representation of Latinos in U.S. literature.
Gary Totten (English) published the article, "'Time Is a Flat Circle': The Naturalist Visual Aesthetic of Contemporary Television Crime Series," in the journal Studies in American Naturalism. Totten discusses HBO’s True Detective seasons one (2014) and three (2019), while also comparing Netflix’s Bloodline (2015–2017) and Ozark (2017–2022).…
Sujata Chattopadhyay's (English) had a proposal accepted for presentation at the Annual Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention on Jan. 4-7, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at The Global South and Ireland Roundtable. Title of presentation: "A Curious Case of the Country-Born Anglo-Indian: Disease and Healing in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim"…
Gary Totten (English) presented a paper, "Edith Wharton and the Beauties of Tourism," at the American Literature Association Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, May 24-27. The paper examines Edith Wharton's depiction in her travel writing of how tourist experiences and texts (such as travel guidebooks) enhance her experience of beauty in natural…
A story by Roberto Lovato (English) in Alta Journal on the appropriation of psychedelics, The Gentrification of Consciousness, was nominated for a Best Commentary award by the Los Angeles Press Club.