Nicholas Monk - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Nicholas Monk
South Central Review, 2020
Cormac McCarthy in Context
The Encyclopedia of the Gothic
This Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to one of the most vibrant and expansive tra... more This Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to one of the most vibrant and expansive traditions in world literature. The American West occupies a unique place in the global imagination, and the literature it produced transcends the category of 'region' in theme and form. Written by prominent international scholars, the essays cover a diverse group of key texts and authors, including major figures in the Native American, Hispanic, Asian American, and African American movements. Treatments range from environmental and ecopoetic to transnational and transcultural, reflecting the richness of the field. This volume places the literature in deep historical context and features a chronology and a bibliography for further reading. It will be an essential guide for students of literature of the American West and of American literature generally.
Studies in Theatre and Performance, 2017
Stacey Peebles's Cormac McCarthy and Performance is the first book-length study to deal in a comp... more Stacey Peebles's Cormac McCarthy and Performance is the first book-length study to deal in a comprehensive fashion exclusively with film, film adaptation and the plays. Peebles's book is thorough, thoughtful, original and scholarly. It is also timely, and accessible to expert and casual reader alike. Peebles, as editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal, contributes in an important way to the dissemination of the large and rapidly growing body of critical and scholarly work on Cormac McCarthy. The Journal, lately relocated to Penn State, has a growing reputation for the publication of high-quality scholarship on McCarthy and, as one might expect, Peebles reproduces this standard in her book. As she notes in her introduction, she 'uses correspondence, manuscript materials, interviews, and critical sources to tell [the] relatively unknown story of the author's work' (4). The chapter on McCarthy's first screenplay and first filmed work, The Gardener's Son (1977), is a model of this approach. There is much detail excavated from the archive which is seamlessly combined, in a brisk and engaging style, with a thoughtful focus on tragedy. Tragedy is the critical thread that runs through the book and provides it with structure, but more importantly its intellectual heft: Girard, Hegel and Aristotle among others are cited to convincing effect. Peebles is also helped by her choice of the better McCarthy critics-Dianne Luce in particular-as touchstones for insight and support across the range of materials she selects. Peebles's analysis of McCarthy's fiction possesses both breadth and depth as a result of these approaches. Writing with clarity and elegance, she leads the reader through a comprehensive engagement with the full range of screenplays and adaptations. This is a very readable book. The description of the conversation between Stephen Colbert and James Franco, for example, on Franco's adaptation of Child of God (2014) is both instructive and entertaining. Peebles's enjoyment of the exchange is infectious, but she is able at the same time as entertaining her reader to provide a detailed meta-analysis. Peebles is convincing on the screenplays, films and plays, with a sure touch in her discussion of the 'big' films, No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Road (2009). Her thoughtful treatment of The Counselor (2013)-a piece of work routinely traduced by 'serious' McCarthy scholars-pays the reader back for joining her in a unprejudiced evaluation of a work which McCarthy completed in six weeks. Peebles is particularly strong here, as she is throughout, in comparing between McCarthy's screenplays and the novels, and what is finally committed to film. Ridley Scott's work, for Peebles, in failing to allow the character of Malkina the role of 'tragic keystone' (182) that McCarthy's original screenplay warranted, renders 'the entire structure untenable' (182). While giving Scott credit for representing 'strong women' (181), Peebles examines critically the controversial way women in The Counselor, and Malkina in particular, are depicted. The infamous scene where she 'performs a full split on the windshield and then moves up and down …' (186) is used as the basis for a persuasive critique of sexism in the finished movie. Peebles is a film scholar, and this shows. Indeed, it is one of the elements that sets this book apart in McCarthy studies. It avoids the 'automatic privileging of literature over film' (3), and so is a refreshing addition to the critical canon on McCarthy. It's slightly surprising, therefore, that there is no detailed look at Peter Josyph's film Acting McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000), which would have been a fascinating addition to the chapter on the work that first brought McCarthy popular acclaim. Josyph's interviews with the
Open Cultural Studies, 2018
There is a growing body of work on the theory of cultural literacy, but little has been written o... more There is a growing body of work on the theory of cultural literacy, but little has been written on how to teach cultural literacy in higher education contexts. This article discusses the use of Open-space Learning (OSL) techniques as valuable tools for teaching cultural literacy. Cultural literacy and OSL are two different areas of study, but there is common ground between them, and cultural literacy can draw great benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas with OSL. The paper focuses on practice-based models used in OSL that have been adapted to teach cultural literacy. The aim of these practice-based models is to create an environment that teaches students how to transfer the analytical and critical skills that they learn as part of a literary and cultural studies (LCS) course to real-life scenarios. We argue that an important part of this learning environment is what we refer to as cognitive “destabilisation,” and discuss why OSL techniques are ideally suited to fostering such d...
Reconstructing Identity, 2017
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Christianity & Literature, 2017
Intercultural Education, 2016
Higher Education institutions face specific challenges preparing graduates to live and work in tr... more Higher Education institutions face specific challenges preparing graduates to live and work in transdisciplinary and transcultural environments. It is imperative for these institutions to provide their students with the skill sets that will give them the mobility and flexibility to be able to operate efficiently in different cultural and professional contexts. This position paper proposes that developing proficiency in Cultural Literacy will allow graduates of Higher Education institutions to transcend such cultural and disciplinary boundaries. In this paper we define Cultural Literacy in Higher Education as a modus operandi and a threshold concept, following Meyer and Land's understanding of the term. We also propose 'Destabilisation' and 'Reflection' as two strategies for teaching Cultural Literacy, and examine three case studies where these strategies were successfully embedded into teaching and learning spaces. 'Cosmopolitanism, ' 'Global citizen, ' 'Cosmopolitan capital'-but in the context of Higher Education the intent is essentially the same: to provide students with the skill sets that will give them the mobility and flexibility to be able to operate efficiently in a variety of cultural and professional contexts. The need to build capacity in these shifting environments can be understood as a need to build culturally literate graduates. In this position paper, we propose that developing proficiency in Cultural Literacy will allow graduates to transcend both disciplinary and cultural boundaries, with the aim of increasing understanding, openness,
The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American West
London Review of Education, 2015
Education in the twenty-first century is characterized by narratives of global connectivity. Oppo... more Education in the twenty-first century is characterized by narratives of global connectivity. Opportunities offered by digital technologies, connectivity through mobile platforms, and social media, reinforced by changing expectations of students and parents, have put pressure on universities to reimagine global learning and flexible delivery contained in a modern higher degree. The higher education sector has sought to address these developments in a number of ways: through intensified student exchange and recruitment, the establishment of off-shore campuses, an expanding online delivery presence, and by increasing flexibility of delivery for on-campus students. While each of the current options taken up by universities addresses different aspects of these trends in the sector, all have inherent problems and imbalances in their approach. In this paper we reflect on the effectiveness of the current trends in international education and propose that the innovative 'Portal Pedagogy&...
Performing Early Modern Drama Today
The Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy, 2013
Literature Compass, 2013
This article offers a short analytical overview of the career and work of Cormac McCarthy, provid... more This article offers a short analytical overview of the career and work of Cormac McCarthy, provides a brief and necessarily selective discussion of the criticism, and suggests future directions for study. The aim of the piece is to guide those new – or relatively new – to McCarthy to the areas of the fiction, plays, films, and criticism, that will best match their interests. The article lays heavy emphasis on Cormac McCarthy’s writing style, but also recognizes the themes he develops as being of central importance in US and world culture in the early twenty‐first century: war, violence, ecology, crises of masculinity, the spiritual. McCarthy’s fiction addresses these important areas in a way that is generically close to realism, but through its picaresque tendencies and almost supernatural relationship with landscape and animals, produces a vivid collection of semi‐fantastic worlds that are hugely productive for reader and critic.
Journal of American Studies, 2008
Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2010
ABSTRACT In order to explore new teaching and learning methods for undergraduates in chemistry at... more ABSTRACT In order to explore new teaching and learning methods for undergraduates in chemistry at the University of Warwick, interactive workshops based on the periodic table were devised by a team of chemists and theatre practitioners. In the first term of the academic year, students were assigned an element to research, and were required to submit (unassessed) research essays. Students then attended a three-hour workshop in which they embodied their knowledge of the chemical behaviour of that element, interacting with other students in roles as ‘their’ element. These sessions were supported by ‘Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry’ lectures. This exercise was conducted with both the 2008 and 2009 student intake. The details of the workshops are described and the pedagogical impact discussed.
Western American Literature, 2013
South Central Review, 2020
Cormac McCarthy in Context
The Encyclopedia of the Gothic
This Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to one of the most vibrant and expansive tra... more This Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to one of the most vibrant and expansive traditions in world literature. The American West occupies a unique place in the global imagination, and the literature it produced transcends the category of 'region' in theme and form. Written by prominent international scholars, the essays cover a diverse group of key texts and authors, including major figures in the Native American, Hispanic, Asian American, and African American movements. Treatments range from environmental and ecopoetic to transnational and transcultural, reflecting the richness of the field. This volume places the literature in deep historical context and features a chronology and a bibliography for further reading. It will be an essential guide for students of literature of the American West and of American literature generally.
Studies in Theatre and Performance, 2017
Stacey Peebles's Cormac McCarthy and Performance is the first book-length study to deal in a comp... more Stacey Peebles's Cormac McCarthy and Performance is the first book-length study to deal in a comprehensive fashion exclusively with film, film adaptation and the plays. Peebles's book is thorough, thoughtful, original and scholarly. It is also timely, and accessible to expert and casual reader alike. Peebles, as editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal, contributes in an important way to the dissemination of the large and rapidly growing body of critical and scholarly work on Cormac McCarthy. The Journal, lately relocated to Penn State, has a growing reputation for the publication of high-quality scholarship on McCarthy and, as one might expect, Peebles reproduces this standard in her book. As she notes in her introduction, she 'uses correspondence, manuscript materials, interviews, and critical sources to tell [the] relatively unknown story of the author's work' (4). The chapter on McCarthy's first screenplay and first filmed work, The Gardener's Son (1977), is a model of this approach. There is much detail excavated from the archive which is seamlessly combined, in a brisk and engaging style, with a thoughtful focus on tragedy. Tragedy is the critical thread that runs through the book and provides it with structure, but more importantly its intellectual heft: Girard, Hegel and Aristotle among others are cited to convincing effect. Peebles is also helped by her choice of the better McCarthy critics-Dianne Luce in particular-as touchstones for insight and support across the range of materials she selects. Peebles's analysis of McCarthy's fiction possesses both breadth and depth as a result of these approaches. Writing with clarity and elegance, she leads the reader through a comprehensive engagement with the full range of screenplays and adaptations. This is a very readable book. The description of the conversation between Stephen Colbert and James Franco, for example, on Franco's adaptation of Child of God (2014) is both instructive and entertaining. Peebles's enjoyment of the exchange is infectious, but she is able at the same time as entertaining her reader to provide a detailed meta-analysis. Peebles is convincing on the screenplays, films and plays, with a sure touch in her discussion of the 'big' films, No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Road (2009). Her thoughtful treatment of The Counselor (2013)-a piece of work routinely traduced by 'serious' McCarthy scholars-pays the reader back for joining her in a unprejudiced evaluation of a work which McCarthy completed in six weeks. Peebles is particularly strong here, as she is throughout, in comparing between McCarthy's screenplays and the novels, and what is finally committed to film. Ridley Scott's work, for Peebles, in failing to allow the character of Malkina the role of 'tragic keystone' (182) that McCarthy's original screenplay warranted, renders 'the entire structure untenable' (182). While giving Scott credit for representing 'strong women' (181), Peebles examines critically the controversial way women in The Counselor, and Malkina in particular, are depicted. The infamous scene where she 'performs a full split on the windshield and then moves up and down …' (186) is used as the basis for a persuasive critique of sexism in the finished movie. Peebles is a film scholar, and this shows. Indeed, it is one of the elements that sets this book apart in McCarthy studies. It avoids the 'automatic privileging of literature over film' (3), and so is a refreshing addition to the critical canon on McCarthy. It's slightly surprising, therefore, that there is no detailed look at Peter Josyph's film Acting McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000), which would have been a fascinating addition to the chapter on the work that first brought McCarthy popular acclaim. Josyph's interviews with the
Open Cultural Studies, 2018
There is a growing body of work on the theory of cultural literacy, but little has been written o... more There is a growing body of work on the theory of cultural literacy, but little has been written on how to teach cultural literacy in higher education contexts. This article discusses the use of Open-space Learning (OSL) techniques as valuable tools for teaching cultural literacy. Cultural literacy and OSL are two different areas of study, but there is common ground between them, and cultural literacy can draw great benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas with OSL. The paper focuses on practice-based models used in OSL that have been adapted to teach cultural literacy. The aim of these practice-based models is to create an environment that teaches students how to transfer the analytical and critical skills that they learn as part of a literary and cultural studies (LCS) course to real-life scenarios. We argue that an important part of this learning environment is what we refer to as cognitive “destabilisation,” and discuss why OSL techniques are ideally suited to fostering such d...
Reconstructing Identity, 2017
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Christianity & Literature, 2017
Intercultural Education, 2016
Higher Education institutions face specific challenges preparing graduates to live and work in tr... more Higher Education institutions face specific challenges preparing graduates to live and work in transdisciplinary and transcultural environments. It is imperative for these institutions to provide their students with the skill sets that will give them the mobility and flexibility to be able to operate efficiently in different cultural and professional contexts. This position paper proposes that developing proficiency in Cultural Literacy will allow graduates of Higher Education institutions to transcend such cultural and disciplinary boundaries. In this paper we define Cultural Literacy in Higher Education as a modus operandi and a threshold concept, following Meyer and Land's understanding of the term. We also propose 'Destabilisation' and 'Reflection' as two strategies for teaching Cultural Literacy, and examine three case studies where these strategies were successfully embedded into teaching and learning spaces. 'Cosmopolitanism, ' 'Global citizen, ' 'Cosmopolitan capital'-but in the context of Higher Education the intent is essentially the same: to provide students with the skill sets that will give them the mobility and flexibility to be able to operate efficiently in a variety of cultural and professional contexts. The need to build capacity in these shifting environments can be understood as a need to build culturally literate graduates. In this position paper, we propose that developing proficiency in Cultural Literacy will allow graduates to transcend both disciplinary and cultural boundaries, with the aim of increasing understanding, openness,
The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American West
London Review of Education, 2015
Education in the twenty-first century is characterized by narratives of global connectivity. Oppo... more Education in the twenty-first century is characterized by narratives of global connectivity. Opportunities offered by digital technologies, connectivity through mobile platforms, and social media, reinforced by changing expectations of students and parents, have put pressure on universities to reimagine global learning and flexible delivery contained in a modern higher degree. The higher education sector has sought to address these developments in a number of ways: through intensified student exchange and recruitment, the establishment of off-shore campuses, an expanding online delivery presence, and by increasing flexibility of delivery for on-campus students. While each of the current options taken up by universities addresses different aspects of these trends in the sector, all have inherent problems and imbalances in their approach. In this paper we reflect on the effectiveness of the current trends in international education and propose that the innovative 'Portal Pedagogy&...
Performing Early Modern Drama Today
The Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy, 2013
Literature Compass, 2013
This article offers a short analytical overview of the career and work of Cormac McCarthy, provid... more This article offers a short analytical overview of the career and work of Cormac McCarthy, provides a brief and necessarily selective discussion of the criticism, and suggests future directions for study. The aim of the piece is to guide those new – or relatively new – to McCarthy to the areas of the fiction, plays, films, and criticism, that will best match their interests. The article lays heavy emphasis on Cormac McCarthy’s writing style, but also recognizes the themes he develops as being of central importance in US and world culture in the early twenty‐first century: war, violence, ecology, crises of masculinity, the spiritual. McCarthy’s fiction addresses these important areas in a way that is generically close to realism, but through its picaresque tendencies and almost supernatural relationship with landscape and animals, produces a vivid collection of semi‐fantastic worlds that are hugely productive for reader and critic.
Journal of American Studies, 2008
Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2010
ABSTRACT In order to explore new teaching and learning methods for undergraduates in chemistry at... more ABSTRACT In order to explore new teaching and learning methods for undergraduates in chemistry at the University of Warwick, interactive workshops based on the periodic table were devised by a team of chemists and theatre practitioners. In the first term of the academic year, students were assigned an element to research, and were required to submit (unassessed) research essays. Students then attended a three-hour workshop in which they embodied their knowledge of the chemical behaviour of that element, interacting with other students in roles as ‘their’ element. These sessions were supported by ‘Introduction to Inorganic Chemistry’ lectures. This exercise was conducted with both the 2008 and 2009 student intake. The details of the workshops are described and the pedagogical impact discussed.
Western American Literature, 2013