Following are some of my short writings about wonder. Let me know if you would like to contribute relevant links to research or creative work on this page.
Click on a title that interests you...
Sixteen Definitions of Wonder. The first two chapters of a creative nonfiction work that explores the appreciation of wonder in cosmic and everyday life, from Greek tragedy to factory-made bread. Edited by an entirely plausible cat.
The Politics of Reading for Wonder. A talk delivered at the University of South Dakota that introduces some principle ideas behind my 2018 book, Reading for Wonder. I discuss the ambiguous ethical implications of wonder, its distinction from magic and awe, and its distinct poetics. Along the way I compare the popular movies Star Wars and Alien, and the experimental poems Commons and Styrofoam.
Reading for Ecology: Can We Be Taught to Care? A short presentation delivered to the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada that looks at the poetics of the ambiguous transition, in literature, from empathetic imagination to ethical caring about our ecological environs. My examples are texts by W. B. Yeats and E. M. Forster.
What Is an Expanded Ecopoetics... e.g. in Riverdale? A short paper about how to teach in an ecological emergency, developed for a conference presentation to the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada.
I am currently at work on two creative writing projects that explore wonder from different perspectives, mainly with respect to gender and sexuality in a short story sequence entitled Love Songs for Friends and Foes, and in relation to the fate of knowledge in the entertainment age in a novel, The Paradise Script.