
About
Victorian Literature
Empire Studies
Narrative Theory
Psychoanalysis
John Kucich is the author of four books on Victorian literature and culture: Excess and Restraint in the Novels of Charles Dickens (Georgia, 1981), Repression in Victorian Fiction (California, 1987), The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction (Cornell, 1994), and Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class (Princeton, 2007). He has edited, with Dianne F. Sadoff, Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century (Minnesota, 2000), and he is the editor of Fictions of Empire (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002). He also co-edited Volume Three, 1820-1880 (Oxford, 2011), in Oxford University Press's landmark project, The Oxford History of the Novel in English, a twelve-volume series that is likely to be the standard reference work for decades. He has written dozens of articles on Victorian literature and culture, which have appeared in the top journals in his field as well as in the most eminent generalist journals in literary studies. One of these, an essay on Rudyard Kipling, was awarded the 2005 Donald Gray Prize as the best essay of the year in Victorian studies by the field's flagship organization, the North American Victorian Studies Association. He serves on the advisory boards of several top journals in his field and has served on the Editorial Board of PMLA. He has won major fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Humanities Center. His areas of expertise include Victorian studies, empire studies, narrative theory, psychoanalysis, and multi-media heritage adaptation.
Office / Office Hours
Murray Hall, Room 203C, College Ave Campus
On Leave Fall 2020
Courses Taught
- Cultural Logics: Victorian, Modern, and Postmodern
- History of Literary Theory II: Romanticism to Present
- Issues and Problems in Literary Theory
- The Literature and Culture of British Imperialism, 1875-1925
- Close-Reading the Classics: Our Mutual Friend and Middlemarch
- Romanticism Versus Realism in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction
- Seminar: Nineteenth-Century Organic Social Formations
- Seminar: Genre Study: Domestic Novel, Political Novel
Awards and Affiliations
- Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, 2012
- Donald Gray Prize, Best Essay in Victorian Studies, North American Victorian Studies Association, for “Sadomasochism and the Magical Group,” 2005
- Distinguished Faculty Recognition Award, University of Michigan, 2004
- Ayrshire Foundation Award, University of Michigan, 2003
- National Humanities Center Fellowship, 2003
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1987
- NEH Fellowship, 1985
- Advisory Board, Nineteenth-Century Literature, 1995-
- Advisory Board, NOVEL: A Forum On Fiction, 2008-
- Member, Modern Language Association
- Member, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association
- Member, North American Victorian Studies Association
Publications
Excess and Restraint in the Novels of Charles Dickens (Georgia, 1981)
Repression in Victorian Fiction (California, 1987)
The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction (Cornell, 1994)
Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class (Princeton, 2007)
Edited, with Dianne F. Sadoff: Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century (Minnesota, 2000)
Edited: Fictions of Empire (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002)
Edited: Volume Three, 1820-1880 (Oxford, 2011), in Oxford University Press's The Oxford History of the Novel in English
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Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class
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- Princeton University Press, 2006
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Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century
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- University of Minnesota Press, 2000
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The Power of Lies, Transgression in Victorian Fiction
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- Cornell University Press, 1994
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Repression in Victorian Fiction: Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Charles Dickens
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- University of California Press, 1987
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Excess and Restraint in the Novels of Charles Dickens
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- University of Georgia Press, 1981
- "Political Melodrama Meets Domestic Fiction: The Politics of Genre in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, Novel 52 (2019)
- "The 'Organic Appeal' in Felix Holt: Social Problem Fiction, Paternalism, and the Welfare State, Victorian Studies 59 ((2017)
- "Reverse Slumming: Cross-Class Performativity and Organic Order in Dickens and Gaskell," Victorian Studies 55 (2013)
- “Psychoanalytic Historicism: Shadow Discourse and the Gender Politics of Masochism in Ellis, Schreiner, and Haggard” PMLA 126 (2011)
- “The Unfinished Historicist Project: In Praise of Suspicion”
Victoriographies (2011) - "Melancholia and Victorian Masculinity,"The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins (2006)
- "Sadomasochism and the Magical Group: Kipling's Middle-Class Imperialism"
Victorian Studies 46 (2003) - "Masochism, Omnipotence, and Olive Schreiner: Strategies of a Preoedipal Politicals"
NOVEL: A Forum On Fiction 36 (2002) - "The Ascendancy of Science" A Companion to the Victorian Novel (Cambridge, 2002)
- "Melancholy Magic: Masochism, Sevenson, Anti-Imperialism" Nineteenth-Century Literature 56 (2001)
- "Intellectual Debate and the Victorian Novel: Religion, Science, and the Professional"
The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (2001) - "Introduction: Histories of the Present." Co-authored with Dianne F. Sadoff. Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century (2000)
Education
PhD, University at Buffalo
MA, University at Buffalo
BA, University of California, Santa Cruz
Other Information of Interest
- New British Studies Center Positions Rutgers as Venue for Interdisciplinary Scholarship
- "Modernity and the Native American: Kate Flint Delivers Opening Lecture" by John Kucich
(Future Traditions Magazine, Issue 2) - "Making History at Rutgers: A Conference on Rethinking Master Narratives" by John Kucich
(Future Traditions Magazine, Issue 2) - "John Kucich" - New Faculty Profiles by Barry V. Qualls
(Future Traditions Magazine, Issue 1)