Mia L. McIver, Ph.D.

Department of English

435 Humanities Instructional Building

University of California, Irvine

Irvine, CA 92697

Education

2009 Ph.D.,English Literature with Certificate in Critical Theory, University ofCalifornia, Irvine

Dissertation:      “Sovereignty andWorld-Making:

Statesof Exception in Modernist Literature 1918-1941”

With chapters on David Jones,Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Rebecca West, and Bertolt Brecht, thisdissertation examines the relationship between twentieth-century literature andpolitical philosophy, arguing that modernist form enacts a critique ofemergency powers that reorients our understanding of sovereignty.

Committee: MargotNorris (Chair), Steven Mailloux, Laura O’Connor, Rei Terada

1999 M.A.,English Literature, Boston University

1997 A.B.cum laude,English Literature, Duke University

Publications

“David Jonesand the Pastoral Romance of Political Theology.” Revised and resubmitted to PMLA.

“GérardGenette.” Entry forthcoming in TheBlackwell Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory. Ed. Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.

“‘Huns’ vs.‘Corned Beef’: Representations of the Other in American and German Literatureand Film on World War I. Ed. Thomas F. Schneiderand Hans Wagener.” (Review.) Forthcoming in The German Quarterly 82.2 (2009).

“PoliticalTheologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. Ed. Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan.” (Review.)  Forthcoming in Christianity andLiterature 58.2(2009).

“Death, Men, and Modernism: Trauma and Narrative inBritish Fiction from Hardy to Woolf, byAriela Freedman, and Ritual Unbound: Reading Sacrifice in ModernistFiction, by Thomas Cousineau.” (Review.) Woolf Studies Annual 12 (2006): 258-64.

Awards andHonors

Graduate andDissertation Fellowships

Murray Krieger Fellowship in Literary Theory. 2003-2009.

Graduate Dean Dissertation Fellowship. Spring 2009.

UC Regents’ Dissertation Fellowship. 2007-2009.

Koehn Endowed Graduate Research Assistantship in CriticalTheory. January-June 2008.

La Verne Noyes Fellowship. 2007-2008.

Summer Dissertation Fellowship. UCI School of Humanities. Summer 2007.

Presidential University Graduate Fellowship. Boston University.  1997-1999.

Residential Programs

Fellow, School of Criticism and Theory. Cornell University.  June-August 2006.

Fellow, Dickens Universe. Dickens Project, University of California, Santa Cruz. August 2006.

Fellow, University of California Humanities ResearchInstitute Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory. August 2004.

Research Grants

Dean’s Summer Research Initiative Grant. Summer 2008.

Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies ResearchGrant. Summer 2007.

UCI School of Humanities Research Grant. Summer 2007.

UCI Humanities Center Research Grant. March 2006.

Summer International Travel Grant, International Center forWriting and Translation. September2005.

Other Awards

ModernistStudies Association Conference Travel Grant. November 2008.

Alexander Publications Fellowship. June 2008.

Margaret and Robert Montgomery Prize in English. June 2008.

International James Joyce Foundation Scholarship. June2008.

Summer Language Grant (Russian), International Center forWriting and Translation.

Summer 2008.

Graduate Laptop Award. UCI School of Humanities. 2007-2008

Graduate Student Travel Grant. 15th Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf. June 2005.

Conference Travel Grants. UCI School of the Humanities. June 2005 and June 2004.

Undergraduate Essay Award. Duke University Department of English. May 1997.

ConferenceParticipation

“Joyce, West,Augustine.” Panel Organizer:“Women on Top: Female Modernists Reading Joyce.” North American James Joyce Conference: Eire on the Erie. Buffalo, NY, June 2009.

“Augustine atNuremberg: Life, Law, and Love in Arendt and West.” American ComparativeLiterature Association Conference. Harvard University, March 2009.

“The SleepingLord: Celtic Romance and Sovereign Time.” Modern Language Association Conference. San Francisco, CA, December 2008.

“Islands ofException: Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier and Carl Schmitt’s The Nomos ofthe Earth.” Modernist Studies Association 10thAnnual Conference: Modernism and Global Media. Nashville, TN, November 2008.

“Joyce withSpinoza: Legal Fiction and Double Truth.” XXIst International James Joyce Symposium: Re/Nascent Joyce. Tours, France, June 2008.

“Epic Ethics inModernity.” Panel Chair: “Ethicsand/of Formalism in the Twentieth Century.” Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. Austin, TX, May 2008.

Organizer andReading Group Leader, Critical Theory Undergraduate Conference. University of California, Irvine, April2008.

“Suspension,not Suspense.” SeminarOrganizer: “Middle Passages: The Poetics and Ethics of Suspension.” AmericanComparative Literature Association Conference: Arrivals and Departures. Long Beach, CA, April 2008.

“SovereignMaking in David Jones’ In Parenthesis.” PanelChair: “Properties of Utopia: Joyce and Benjamin.” Modernist Studies Association 9th Annual Conference:Geographies of Visual and Literary Culture. Long Beach, CA, November 2007.

“ShakespeareMeets Christ in New Bloomusalem: Ulysses’ Political Theology.” North American James Joyce Conference. University of Texas, Austin, June 2007.

“Talk about theWeather: Storms and Security in To the Lighthouse.” 17th Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf: Art, Education,and Internationalism. MiamiUniversity of Ohio, June 2007.

“’NecessityKnows No Law’: Atrocity, Political Theology, and Biopolitics in MotherCourage and Her Children.” Cultures of Violence:Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference. University of California, Irvine, April 2007.

“The Aestheticsof Subjection.” Decadence: Excess,Erosion, and Transgression: Visual Studies Graduate Student Conference. University of California, Irvine, March2007.

“PygmalionSwoons: The Aesthetics of Subjection in Pater, Morris, and Wilde.” Modern Language Association Conference.  Philadelphia, PA, December 2006.

“Bound by thePearls of History: The Aesthetic Subject of The Tragic Muse.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language AssociationConference. University ofCalifornia, Riverside, October 2006.

Mentor, PanelChair, and Respondent: “Transitions and Interventions.” Critical Theory UndergraduateConference. University ofCalifornia, Irvine, April 2006.

“The PoliticalWork of Art: Thomas Mann with Freud and Hegel.” Panel Chair: “War Literature.” Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture Conference. University of Louisville, February2006.

“Theaters ofConsciousness: Reality and Representation in Between the Acts.” 15th Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf: The Art ofExploration. Lewis and ClarkCollege, June 2005.

“The Order ofCatechism: Narrative Rhythm and Spatial Form in ‘Ithaca.’” Panel Chair: “Ulysses in Space-Time: Rhythm, Gaps, andHistory.” Bloomsday100Symposium. Dublin, Ireland, June2004.

InvitedTalks

“Heart ofDarkness and theModernist Project.” PomonaCollege, December 2007.

“Eros betweenPoetry and Criticism: ‘Dover Beach’ and ‘The Function of Criticism at thePresent Time.’’” University ofIllinois, Chicago, November 2007.

Teaching

University ofCalifornia, Irvine

Courses as Primary Instructor

English 28A: Poetic Imagination:The Haunts of Poetry. Fall 2008.

This course explores how and why the afterlives ofexperience find expression in verse. It focuses on the elegaic tradition, poets’ responses to prior influence,gothic landscapes, and poetry’s relationship to painting and music. Readings include British and Americanpoetry from Shakespeare to Jorie Graham.

English28B: Comic and Tragic Vision: Fidelity in Drama. Spring 2006.

In this class, we examine faithfulness and betrayalin political, economic, and interpersonal contexts. Because farce and tragedy are both driven by excesses offidelity, in these plays we trace the contributions of indebtedness, irreverence,and promise-breaking to concepts of the sacred and profane. Readings include Antigone, TheComedy of Errors, The Rover, What the Butler Saw, and Betrayal.

English28C: Realism and Romance: The Novel and War. Spring 2005.

This class treats war as a limit case for thenovel’s relationship to history, violence, and consciousness. We ask what the art of war consists ofand how strategies of representation relate to military and revolutionarytactics. Readings include TheLast of the Mohicans, A Tale of Two Cities, Mrs. Dalloway, For Whom the BellTolls, and BridesheadRevisited.

Writing37: Intensive Writing. Fall 2004,Fall 2006.

In this team-taught intermediate composition course,assignments include in-class free-writes; personal narratives; rhetoricalanalyses of poetry, print ads, and television programs; and applicationanalyses using primary and secondary texts.

Writing39A Plus: Fundamentals of Composition. Winter 2005.

In this introductory composition class with a labcomponent, assignments include personal narratives, rhetorical analyses ofadvertising and music lyrics, application analyses using primary and secondarytexts, and grammar workshops.

Courses as Teaching Assistant

English102D: Anglo-American Modernism. (TA for Margot Norris.) Winter 2007.

Nightwood, Heart of Darkness, The Waste Land, Harlem Renaissance poetry, “Araby”and “The Dead,” Quicksand, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas.

Criticism100A: Introduction to Criticism and Theory. (TA for Steven Mailloux.) Winter 2006.

Therhetorical tradition from the pre-Socratics to Derrida.

English106: American Documentary. (TA forMark Goble.) Fall 2005.

19th- and 20th-century film, journalism, andmemoir. Affinities betweenfictional and non-fictional representational techniques.

BostonUniversity

Courses as Teaching Assistant

Introduction to Fiction. (TA for Emily Dalgarno.)Spring 1999.

Introduction to Fiction. (TA for Julia Brown.) Fall1998.

Service

Organizer andLeader, Finnegans Wake Reading Group. 2008-2009.

Organizer,Critical Theory Emphasis Undergraduate Conference. Spring 2008.

Member,Critical Theory Core Committee, 2007-2008.

SearchCommittee Member, Senior Position in Literary Theory. 2007-2008.

UndergraduateMentor, Critical Theory Emphasis Undergraduate Conference. April 2006.

Panelist,Prospective Student Recruitment Weekend. 2005-2007.

GraduateStudent Mentor, Department of English. 2004-2007.

ModernistReading Group. 2005-present.

VictorianStudies Group. 2004-present.

GraduateStudent Representative to the English Department Faculty. 2005-2006.

GraduateStudent Representative to School of Humanities Dean’s Advisory Council. 2005.

EnglishDepartment Graduate Student Colloquium Committee. 2003-2005 (Chair 2004-2005).

Teaching andResearch Interests

Modernistliterature, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, theory and history of the novel,modern and contemporary drama, war literature, twentieth-century women’swriting, literature and philosophy, narrative theory, law and literature.

RelevantWork Experience

2008-2009 ResearchAssistant to Joseph Jenkins

Projects:U.S. inheritance law, liberalism and private property.

2007-present SAT Essay Reader, TheCollege Board. New York, NY.

2005-present Reader, AnalyticalWriting Placement Examination. Berkeley, CA

2004-2006 ResearchAssistant to Rei Terada

Projects:  Goethe’s Farbenlehre; micro-agency in psychoanalysis and existential                                     psychotherapy

1999-2001 AssociateEditor, Economics, Oxford University Press. New York, NY

Acquired, reviewed, and edited economics manuscriptsfor publication; negotiated publication contracts; coordinated marketing andpublicity campaigns for economics list.

Languages

French: Proficient reading, writing, andspeaking skills.

German:Moderate reading skills; elementary writing and speaking skills.

Russian:Elementary reading, writing, and speaking skills.

ProfessionalAffiliations

Modern LanguageAssociation

ModernistStudies Association

AmericanComparative Literature Association

Pacific Ancientand Modern Language Association

InternationalJames Joyce Foundation

SouthernCalifornia Irish Studies Colloquium

Critical TheoryEmphasis, UCI

Center forGlobal Peace and Conflict Studies, UCI

Center for Law,Culture, and Society, UCI

InterdisciplinaryCenter for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, UCI