Name Rank Phone number E-mail Office number
Mark L. Barr Associate Professor (902) 420-5193
[email protected] MN 322
Overview The focus of my teaching and research is on British Romanticism, specifically the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake. Given my prior background as a practicing lawyer, I am especially interested in how these (and other Romantic writers) create a forum for justice in literature that pulls against and opposes the often-repressive judicial system of the 1790s and early 19th Century. My secondary interest is in fantastic literature, both its historical development and its range of modern manifestations in various media (including gaming and the graphic novel). However, these two areas of specialization are just a part of my broader love of the entire English literary tradition, the passion for which I look forward to sharing with my students every day.
Teaching I like to see teaching as improvisation rather than lecture. I routinely put my students in “learning teams” in which I ask them to discuss a variety of texts and issues that I define, contextualize, and guide them through. I never require students to collaborate on graded projects and find that this discussion-based process often produces unexpected results and generates an atmosphere in which we can all develop new knowledge and understanding. I regularly rotate offerings of the following courses: Engl 1205:
Introduction to Literature -- an apocalypse-themed introduction to the essentials of literary analysis and writing.
Engl 2307:
Literary Traditions – a full-year course surveying works from Old English poetry to the modern novel.
Engl 2318:
The Writer and Nature – an examination of the complex relationship between writers, readers and the natural world in texts from Gilgamesh to 21st-C poetry and prose.
Engl 2360:
The Fantastic – an exploration of the roots of modern fantasy literature.
Engl 3416:
The Romantic Movement – a full-year exploration of the thought and work of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, the Shelleys and Byron.
Engl 4425:
Advanced Studies in 18th-Century and Romantic Literature – currently an analysis of William Blake’s life and work.
I also regularly put on two special topics courses (Engl 2827): one on the Oxford writing group known as the Inklings (including CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien), and one on the Graphic Novel.
Selected Publications "'Two Sought Adventure:' Fritz Leiber and the Architecture of Fantasy". Extrapolation 55:1 (Spring 2014): 1-24. "The Forms of Justice: Precedent and Gloss in ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’" English Literary History, 78:4 (Winter 2011) 863-889. "The Common Law Illusion: Literary Justice in Coleridge's On the Constitution of the Church and State." College Literature, 35:3 (Summer 2008) 120-41. "Practicing Resistance: Blake, Milton and the English Jury." European Romantic Review, 18:3 (2007) 361-79. "Prophecy, the Law of Insanity, and The [First] Book of Urizen." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 46:4 (Autumn 2006) 739-62. "The Lyric Dispensation: Coleridge, Mosaic Law, and Equivocal Authority in 'The Eolian Harp.'" Studies in Romanticism, 44:3 (Fall 2005) 293-316.
