Charlie Wesley | Daemen College (original) (raw)
Papers by Charlie Wesley
Explorations, A Journal of Language and Literature 12, (2024) 66-79
Released five years ago, Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (2012) serves as an important revie... more Released five years ago, Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (2012) serves as an important review of his life and oeuvre up to that point, (re)written from the author's changing ideological positions and reflective of his attitudes one decade into the twentyfirst century. Three years later, Rushdie published his most recent novel to date, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015).
Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 2017
This article examines some of the highlights, limitations, and contradictions of Rushdie's author... more This article examines some of the highlights, limitations, and contradictions of Rushdie's authorial personas that have been perpetuated and challenged by his critics and the mass media. I argue that Joseph Anton, published in 2012, exhibits evidence of Rushdie's attempt at authorial self-fashioning, and therefore the memoir represents an important part of his effort to shape the public narrative about him. Joseph Anton highlights Rushdie's exilic persona through direct comparisons to figures like Voltaire and Galileo, and attempts to privilege this position above his other authorial selves. This authorial self has deep roots in a narrative fashioned by Rushdie that has been abetted by some of his critics and the media since the fatwa. My essay critiques this emphasis, suggesting that Rushdie's self-fashioning is out of step with his twenty-first-century political ideals and affiliations. Ultimately, the third-person " distancing " of the memoir helps to highlight what it seeks to mitigate: a plurality of Rushdie's competing for public attention.
Journal of Modern Literature
The possibility of native resistance to colonial tyranny and the threat of the loss of colonial “... more The possibility of native resistance to colonial tyranny and the threat of the loss of colonial “order” is a sustained anxiety throughout Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Critics have largely ignored or downplayed these inscriptions of resistance in Conrad's text. Much of the criticism that surrounds this novella, according to Patrick Brantlinger, is focused on the European subjects of the text, and therefore renders Africa and its native peoples as a kind of backdrop. Literary critiques of Heart of Darkness that do discuss the African natives tend to portray them as victims rather than having any kind of agency. This latent fear of native resistance demonstrates the fantasy of stability and superiority endemic to imperialism: a narrative that the imperial administration must continually tell itself.
The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said (ed. Robert Tally Jr., Palgrave Macmillan 2015)
Education and the USA, American Studies / A Monograph Series, Volume 207. Ed. Laurenz Volkmann , 2011
Indian Writers: Transnationalisms and Diasporas (Postcolonial Studies 5), 2010
Book Reviews by Charlie Wesley
Modern Language Studies, 2013
Modern Language Studies, 2011
Articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Charlie Wesley
The real issue is not the number of pages but how to make reading matter in our classrooms.
Explorations, A Journal of Language and Literature 12, (2024) 66-79
Released five years ago, Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (2012) serves as an important revie... more Released five years ago, Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (2012) serves as an important review of his life and oeuvre up to that point, (re)written from the author's changing ideological positions and reflective of his attitudes one decade into the twentyfirst century. Three years later, Rushdie published his most recent novel to date, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015).
Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 2017
This article examines some of the highlights, limitations, and contradictions of Rushdie's author... more This article examines some of the highlights, limitations, and contradictions of Rushdie's authorial personas that have been perpetuated and challenged by his critics and the mass media. I argue that Joseph Anton, published in 2012, exhibits evidence of Rushdie's attempt at authorial self-fashioning, and therefore the memoir represents an important part of his effort to shape the public narrative about him. Joseph Anton highlights Rushdie's exilic persona through direct comparisons to figures like Voltaire and Galileo, and attempts to privilege this position above his other authorial selves. This authorial self has deep roots in a narrative fashioned by Rushdie that has been abetted by some of his critics and the media since the fatwa. My essay critiques this emphasis, suggesting that Rushdie's self-fashioning is out of step with his twenty-first-century political ideals and affiliations. Ultimately, the third-person " distancing " of the memoir helps to highlight what it seeks to mitigate: a plurality of Rushdie's competing for public attention.
Journal of Modern Literature
The possibility of native resistance to colonial tyranny and the threat of the loss of colonial “... more The possibility of native resistance to colonial tyranny and the threat of the loss of colonial “order” is a sustained anxiety throughout Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Critics have largely ignored or downplayed these inscriptions of resistance in Conrad's text. Much of the criticism that surrounds this novella, according to Patrick Brantlinger, is focused on the European subjects of the text, and therefore renders Africa and its native peoples as a kind of backdrop. Literary critiques of Heart of Darkness that do discuss the African natives tend to portray them as victims rather than having any kind of agency. This latent fear of native resistance demonstrates the fantasy of stability and superiority endemic to imperialism: a narrative that the imperial administration must continually tell itself.
The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said (ed. Robert Tally Jr., Palgrave Macmillan 2015)
Education and the USA, American Studies / A Monograph Series, Volume 207. Ed. Laurenz Volkmann , 2011
Indian Writers: Transnationalisms and Diasporas (Postcolonial Studies 5), 2010
The real issue is not the number of pages but how to make reading matter in our classrooms.