Biography
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that "If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble." As a scholar of literature and an educator I feel that it is important to invest in this sentiment expressed by Sartre, even if it is only in the abstract. This is not to say that literature contains all the answers to our questions, or that it categorically deserves more attention than other intellectual creations, scientific, religious or otherwise. Rather, I am invested in the belief that the reading, analysis, appreciation, theorization, and creation of literature is of great moral value in society. Not only do I believe that studying fiction, poetry, and philosophy will make you a better thinker, writer, and communicator, but also a more insightful particpant in the world.
I studied English literature and philosophy at Whittier College and received my BA in both from there in 2000. I have my MA in English from UW and am currently a PhD candidate in the program working on my dissertation. My interests are diverse and many, though I often find myself working with novels and all kinds of philosophy and "theory." I have a passion for the fiction of Herman Melville and William Faulkner, the poetry of Wallace Stevens, and the philosophical thought of Immanuel Kant, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and more recently Charles Sanders Peirce. My past scholarship focused on the relationship between ontology and literature, and "postmodern" theories of ethics. Current scholarship consists of thinking about the novel and reading in the context of our "new media" ecology, specifically how game media can be related to the poetics of the novel, as well as how technology reconfigures our capacities for reflection and imagination. My dissertation is tentatively titled "Reading and Reflection in the Novel and New Media."
I am also committed to teaching and am always looking for new ways to help students deepen their experience at UW. I proudly worked for the Undergraduate Research Program for two years ('02-'04) and continue to encourage students to participate in research. I am the founder of The Critical Gaming Project @UW, and teach a variety of courses for the Comparative History of Ideas department. If you want to contact me you can email me at schenold@uw.edu.