Address: 314B Morrill Hall
Phone: 405-744-6232
Message: 405-744-9474
E-mail: robert.mayer@okstate.edu
Professor
PhD, Northwestern University
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- British literature in the long eighteenth century (1660-1830)
- The early British novel
- Early modern British historiography
- Eighteenth-century fiction on screen
- Authorship and literary authority
Recent Upper Division & Graduate Courses Taught
Upper-Division Classes:
- Criticism (Critical Theory)
- History of International and American Cinema
- British Novel, 1700-1800
- British Literature, 1600-1800
- History of American Cinema
- Criticism; History of World Cinema
- Shakespeare: Histories and Tragedies.
Graduate Seminars:
- History and the Novel
- Writing the City: Representations of London in Eighteenth-Century British Literature
- Theories of the Novel
- The Eighteenth-Century Novel and Scott
Selected Publications
"Robinson Crusoe on Television," forthcoming in Quarterly Review of Film and Video
Historical Boundaries, Narrative Forms: Essays on British Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century in Honor of Everett Zimmerman, ed. with Lorna Clymer, (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007).
Eighteenth-Century Fiction on Screen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
"Afterword" to Robinson Crusoe, intro. by Paul Theroux (New York: Signet Classics, 2008).
"Lucy Hutchinson: A Life of Writing," The Seventeenth Century, 22 (2007), 305-335.
"Authors and Readers in Scott's Magnum Edition," in Historical Boundaries, Narrative Forms, 114-37.
"Robinson Crusoe in Hollywood," in Approaches to Teaching Robinson Crusoe, eds. Maximillian Novak and Carl Fisher (New York: MLA, 2005), 169-74).
Honors & Offices
- Vice-President, Defoe Society
- Regents Distinguished Research Award, OSU, Fall 2007
- English Department Graduate Students Faculty Award, OSU, Spring 2007
Recent Grants & Research Trips
- OSU Arts and Sciences Research & Travel Grant, 2006 (Edinburgh)
- University Sabbatical, 2005 (London and Edinburgh)
- Internal English Department Sabbatical (2004)
- Arts and Sciences Travel Award, OSU, 2005
- English Department Travel Grants (2003, 2004)
- Internal English Department Sabbatical (2004)
- Arts and Sciences Research Award, OSU, 1999 & 2002
- Research Grants, Oklahoma Humanities Council, 1999
- NEH Fellowship, Aston Magna Academy, Yale University, June-July 1997
Recent Conference Presentations
"The Robinsonade on American Television," ASECS, Portland, OR, March 2008
"The General History of Discoveries and Improvements: Enlightenment and Imperialism," ISECS, Montpellier, France, July 2007
Roundtable Participant, "The Future of Defoe Studies," Defoe Society, ASECS, Atlanta, March 2007
"Politics and the Elegy: The Case of Lucy Hutchinson," Poetry and Politics Conference, Stirling, Scotland, July 2006
"Lucy Hutchinson's Autobiographical Career," ASECS, Montreal, March 2006
Commentary, "Robinson Crusoe" What's the Word? MLA/NPR radio series (Sally Placksin, Producer) (aired 2005-2006 on National Public Radio)
Current Research & Projects
I am working on a book-length study of letters written by and to Walter Scott that derives from research I have done over a number years in the archive of letters to Scott held by the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. The book is tentatively entitled: “Reading and Tactics: Walter Scott’s Literary Correspondence.” I am also working on an essay tentatively entitled "Scott's Editing: History and Authority."