Brian Finney




California State University   
Long Beach    

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Email: bhfinney@bhfinney.com  

 

 

Brian Finney and his younger self

EMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

2010-Present

Professor Emeritus, California State University, Long Beach

2008-2010

Professor, California State University, Long Beach

2005-2008

Associate Professor, California State University, Long Beach.

2003-2005

Assistant Professor, California State University, Long Beach.

1990-2003

Part-time Lecturer, California State University, Long Beach.

Winter 2001

Adjunct Professor, University of California, Los Angeles.

Fall 1996

Adjunct Professor, University of Southern California.

Spring 1995

Adjunct Professor, University of California, Los Angeles.

1989-1993

Adjunct Professor, University of Southern California.

1989-1990

Adjunct Professor, University of California, Los Angeles.

1989-1990

Visiting Distinguished Lecturer, California State University, Long Beach.

1987-1989

Visiting Professor, University of California, Riverside.

Summer 1986

Visiting Professor, University of California,  Los Angeles.

Summer 1985

Visiting Professor, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Summer 1976

Visiting Professor, University of California,  Los Angeles.


    EMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN

    • 1985-1987  Chairman, Adult Education, Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London.
    • 1984-1987  Senior Lecturer in Literature, Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London.
    • 1984-1985  Adjunct Professor, University of Notre Dame, London Center, London.
    • 1981-1984  Lecturer in Literature, Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London.
    • 1964-1981  Tutor-organizer in the Arts, Extension Section, University of London.
    • 1962-1964  Production Control Manager, Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd, Harlow, Essex.
    • 1959-1962  Internal Management Consultant, Joseph Lucas Electrical Ltd, Birmingham.
    • 1956-1959  Signals/Education Officer, Royal Air Force, Abingdon, Berks.

    EDUCATION

    1969-1973    PhD, English, Birkbeck College, University of London, England
                         (Title of doctoral dissertation: "The artistic development of D. H. Lawrence as a writer of short stories.").
    1953-1956    BA (Hon.s), English and Philosophy, University of Reading, England.

    PUBLICATIONS

    BOOKS

    • Terrorized: How the War on Terror Affected American Culture and Society. Amazon: Kindle, 2011.
    • Martin Amis. Routledge Guides to Literature. London and New York: Routledge, 2008
    • English Fiction Since 1984: Narrating a Nation. London and New York: Palgrave  Macmillan, 2006.
    • D. H. Lawrence. Sons and Lovers: A Critical Study. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin; New York: Viking Penguin, 1990.
    • The Inner I: British Literary Autobiography of the Twentieth Century.  London: Faber & Faber; New York: Oxford UP, 1985.
    • Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography. London: Faber & Faber; New York: Oxford UP, 1979.
    • Since How It Is: A Study of Samuel Beckett's Later Fiction.  London: Covent Garden P, 1972.

    EDITIONS

    • The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (introduction and notes). Harmondsworth. Middlesex: Penguin, 1995.
    • St. Mawr and Other Stories (ed. with an introduction, explanatory notes and textual apparatus).Volume 17 of
      The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1983.
    • Selected Short Stories of D. H. Lawrence (ed. with an introduction and notes). Harmondsworth, Middlesex:  Penguin, 1982.
      Introduction abbr. in D. H. Lawrence: A Study of the Short Stories.  Ed. Weldon Thornton. New York: Twayne, 1993.


ARTICLES / ESSAYS

  • "David Mitchell: Global Novelist of the Twenty-First Century." The Contemporary British Novel Since 2000. Edinburgh UP, Forthcoming
  • "Mrs Dalloway and the War that Wouldn't End." Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" and "To the Lighthouse." Ed. James Acheson. New Casebooks. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2017. 125-38.
  • "Irony: Truth's Disguise." Essay-Review of The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes. Los Angeles Review of Books. 20 Jun. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2017. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/irony-truths-disguise/
  • "The David Mitchell Übernovel: Brian Finney Reviews Slade House. Los Angeles Review of Books. 5 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Jan 2017. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-david-mitchell-ubernovel-brian-finney-reviews-slade-house/
  • "Adding to the Übernovel: Why David Mitchell Does What He Does." Essay-Review of The Bone Clocks. Los Angeles Review of Books. 28 Sep. 2014. Web. 12 Jan. 2015. http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/adding-ubernovel-david-mitchell
  • “International Contexts 2: The American Reception of British Fiction in the 1980s.” The 1980s: A Decade of British Fiction. Ed. Philip Tew, Leigh Wilson, and Emily Horton. The Continuum Decades. London & New York: Continuum, 2014.
  • “Taking on Hammer Horror: Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate.” Los Angeles Review of Books 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 Jan. 2014.
    http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/taking-on-hammer-horror-wintersons-the-daylight-gate
  • “The French Lieutenant’s Woman as Historical Fiction.” John Fowles. Ed. James Acheson. New Casebooks. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 90-103.
  • “A Stupid Outpouring of the Life: Richard Bradford’s Martin Amis.”  Los Angeles Review of Books 21 July 2013 Web. 21 Jul. 2013.
    http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/a-stupefied-outpouring-of-the-life-richard-bradfords-martin-amis
  • “Literary Lout: Martin Amis Once Again Faces the Critics.” Los Angeles Review of Books 12 Sep. 2012. Web. 12 Sep. 2012.
    http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/literary-lout-martin-amis-once-again-faces-the-critics
  • "Perfectly Plausible Worlds." Los Angeles Review of. Books 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 7 Jan. 2013 lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=549.
  • “Furious Simulation, or Simulated Fury: Salman Rushdie’s Fury Charmed Fictions: Through Midnight's Children to The Enchantress of Florence. Ed. Meenakshi Bharat. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008. 278-92.
  • “Migrancy and the Picaresque in Timothy Mo’s Renegade or Halo2.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 49.1 (2007): 61-76.
  • "Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow and the Postmodern Sublime.” Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond. Ed. Gavin Keulks.
      London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 101-16.
  • “Briony’s Stand Against Oblivion:  The Making of Fiction in Ian McEwan’s Atonement.” Journal of Modern Literature 27. 3 (2004): 68-82.
  • “A Worm’s Eye View of History: Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters."
     Papers on Language and Literature
    39. 1 (2003): 49-70.
  • “Figuring the Real: Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans.” Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies 7. 1 (2002).
    http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v7is1/ishigu.htm
  • “Bonded by Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body.” Women and Language 25. 2 (2002): 23-31.
  • “Will Self’s Transgressive Fictions.” Essay-Review of Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys. Postmodern Culture 11.3 (2001).
     www.muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v011/11.3finney.html
  • “Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children,” “Samuel Beckett,” “Samuel Beckett’s Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable,”
    “D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers.” Encyclopedia of the Novel. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999.
  • “Demonizing Discourse in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 29. 3 (1998): 67-93.
     Rpt. in Salman Rushdie. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 2003. 185-208.
  • “Tall Tales and Brief Lives: Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus.” Journal of Narrative Technique 28 (1998): 161-85.
  • “Warring Worlds of Words: Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses.” Genre 17 (1997):7-23.
  • "Narrative and Narrated Homicide in Martin Amis's Other People and London Fields." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 37.
    1 (1995): 3-15. Rpt. of pp. 3, 4-7,  8-15 in The Fiction of Martin Amis: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. Ed. Nicholas Tredell,
     New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. 49-53, 103-10.
  • "Beckett's Postmodern Fictions." The Columbia History of the British Novel. Ed. John Richetti. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. 842-866.
  • "Roth's Counterlife: Destabilizing The Facts." Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 16 (1993): 370-87.
  • "Peter Ackroyd, Postmodernist Play and Chatterton." Twentieth Century Literature 38(1992): 240-61.
  • "Suture in Literary Analysis." LIT: Literature. Interpretation. Theory 2  (1991): 131-144.
  • "Temporal Defamiliarization in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Obsidian II. Black Literature in Review 5 (1990): 20-36. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Ed. Barbara H. Solomon. New York: G. K. Hall, 1998. 104-116.
  • "Still  to Worstward Ho: Beckett's Prose Fiction Since The Lost Ones." Beckett's Later Fiction and Drama: Texts for Company Ed.
    James Acheson and Kateryna Arthur. London: Macmillan, New York: St. Martin's, 1987. 65-79.
  • "Sexual Identity in Modern British Autobiography.” Prose Studies 8 (1985): 29-44. Rpt. in Modern Selves: Essays on Modern British and American Autobiography. Ed. Philip Dodd. London and Totoya, New Jersey: Frank Cass, 1986. 29-43.
  • "Boswell's Hebridean Journal and the Ordeal of Dr Johnson." Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 5 (1981): 319-334.
  • "Education and the Arts in London." Adult Education 54 (1981): 38-41.
  • "Laily, Mortmere and All That." Twentieth Century Literature 22 (1976): 286-302.
  • "Assumption to Lessness: Beckett's Shorter Fiction." Beckett the Shape Changer: A Symposium. Ed. Katherine Worth. London & Boston: Routledge, 1975. 61-83.
  • "Two Versions of 'Sun': An Exchange." The D. H. Lawrence Review 8 (1975): 371-372.
  • "Profile of Christopher Isherwood." The New Review 2 (1975): 17-24.
  • "Modernism: A Symposium." (Introduction). The New Review 1 (1975): 12.
  • "A Newly Discovered Text of D. H. Lawrence's 'The Lovely Lady'." Yale University Library Gazette 49 (1975): 245-252.
  • "D. H. Lawrence's Progress to Maturity: From Holograph Manuscript to Final Publication of The Prussian Officer and Other Stories."
    Studies in Bibliography
    28 (1975): 321-332.
  • "Profile of George Lazarus and his Lawrence Collection.” The D. H. Lawrence Review 6 (1973): 309-312.
  • "Two Missing Pages from 'The Ladybird'." Review of English Studies 4 (1973): 191192.
  • "Additional Bibliographical Information on Some D. H. Lawrence Short Stories." Notes and Queries 19 (1972): 337.
  • "The Hitherto Unknown Publication of Some D. H. Lawrence Short Stories." Notes and Queries 19 (1972): 55-56.
  • "An Examination of Dylan Thomas's 'A Visit to Grandpa'." The London Review 8 (1971-72): 31-37.
  • “A Reading of Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine." Twentieth Century Literature 17(1971): 65-71.
  • "An Examination of a Poem by Dylan Thomas." The London Review 2 (1967): 50-61.

REVIEWS

  • Rev. of A Working Mother, by Agnes Owens. New York Times Book Review 18 Feb. 1996: 17.
  • “Rough Sailing.” Rev. of Signals of Distress, by Jim Crace. Los Angeles Times 28 Jan. 1996: 9.
  • “The Life and Thought of Writer, Socialist and Prophet H.G. Wells.” Rev. of H.G.: The History of Mr. Wells, by Michael Foot.
    Chicago Tribune 14 Jan.1996: 6-7.
  • “Murder Blurs the Line Between Play and Life.” Rev. of Morality Play, by Barry Unsworth. San Francisco Chronicle 5-11 Nov. 1995: 3.
  • “Golding in Greece.” Rev. of The Double Tongue, by William Golding. Chicago Tribune 8 Oct. 1995: 5.
  • “Still Stirring To Be Still” (review essay). Rev. of Stirrings Still, by Samuel Beckett. Journal of Beckett Studies, New Series 1, 1-2  (1992):
    129-35.
  • Rev. of Isherwood's Fiction: The Self and Technique, by Lisa M. Schwerdt. Modern Fiction Studies 36. 4 (1990): 613.
  • Rev. of Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life, by Marvin Carlson. Modern Language  Quarterly 51. 1 (1990):
  • “Debaucheries of Judiciousness.” Rev. of History and Value, by Frank Kermode, and Contingencies of Value by Barbara Herrnstein Smith.
    Modern Language Quarterly
    49. 4 (1988): 378-85.
  • Rev. of For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When The Streets Were Too Much (play), by Keith Antar Mason.
    L.A. Weekly 18-25 Nov. 1988:
  • Rev. of The Great Fair - Sholom Aleichem on Tour (play), by Chris DeCarlo and Evelyne Rudie. L.A. Weekly 27 Oct.-3 Nov. 1988: 84.
  • “The Grim Riddle of Britain’s Last Colony.” Rev. of Living With War, by Sally Belfrage, and Belfast Diary by John Conroy.
    Los Angeles Times
    3 Jan. 1988: 12.
  • “Image Clusters.” Rev. of D. H. Lawrence. The Early Years by Michael Black. Times Higher Educational Supplement 27 June 1986: 18.
  • “Table Talk.” Rev. of W. H. Auden: The Far Interior, by Alan Bold (ed.), and W. H. Auden, by Stan Smith. The Times Higher Educational Supplement 17 Jan. 1986: 19.
  • “Uncertain Auden.” Rev. of W. H. Auden: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter. Irish Press Summer 1981.
  • “A Hindu in Hollywood.” Rev. of My Guru and His Disciple by Christopher Isherwood. English 29 (1980): 266-71.
  • “Becoming Beckett.” Rev. of Beckett/Beckett, by Vivian Mercier. Irish Press November 1977.
  • “Writer’s Lawrence.” Rev. of Son and Lover: The Young Lawrence, by Philip Callow. Irish Press 23 August 1975.
  • “Great Illusions.” Rev. of First Love, by Samuel Beckett, and A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett, by Hugh Kenner. Irish Press 4 August 1973.
  • “Mrs. D. H.” Rev. of Frieda Lawrence: A Biography, by Robert Lucas. Irish Press 7 July 1973.
  • “Beckett’s ‘I’.” Rev. of Not I, by Samuel Beckett, and The Plays of Samuel Beckett, by Eugene Webb. Irish Press 14 April 1973.
  • “Space Fiction.” Rev. of Rabbit Redux, by John Updike. Irish Press 8 April 1972.
  • “Ulysses’ Skeleton.” Rev. of Ulysses on the Liffey, by Richard Ellmann.  Irish Press 4  March 1972.
  • “Yeats Gallery.” Rev. of W. B. Yeats and his World, by Michael MacLiammoir and Eavan Boland. Irish Press 27 November 1971.
  • “Robots and Saints.” Rev. of A Fire on the Moon, by Norman Mailer. Irish Press 2 January 1971: 10.
  • “First Fiction.” Rev. of More Pricks Than Kicks, by Samuel Beckett. Irish Press January 1970.


     GRANTS AND AWARDS

    • 2008-2009  Promotion to Full Professor Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 2008-2009  Assigned Time Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 2007-2008  Assigned Time Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 2006-2007  Assigned Time Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 2006-2007  Tenure/Initial Promotion Career Enhancement Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 2005-2006  Assigned Time Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 2004-2005  Assigned Time Award, California State University, Long Beach
    • 1980           British Academy Research Fund Award.
    • 1979           The James Tait Black Memorial Book Prize for the best biography of 1979.
    • 1976           Arts Council of Great Britain Writer's Award.
    • 1970-1971  Two annual University of London Research Fund traveling scholarships.

    LECTURES AND CONFERENCE PAPERS

    • 2008   “Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow, and the Holocaust.” The President’s Forum on International Human Rights: Modern Genocides and
                   Global Responsibility. California State University, Long Beach.
    • 2007   “Images of Violence in the Work of Martin Amis.” Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery.
                   Colorado State University-Pueblo.
    • 2006   “The Satanic Verses: Literature and Social Change Revisited.” OASIS, Long  Beach/Lakewood.
    • 2006   “The Linguistic Self: Beckett’s Last Exploration of the Subject.” Beckett at 100: New Perspectives. International Colloquium.
                   Florida State University, Tallahassee.
    • 2005   “Angela Carter's Narrative on Narration: Nights at the Circus.” International Narrative Conference. University of Louisville, Kentucky.
    • 2004   “Derrida and the Literary Academy.” Derrida Colloquium, California State University, Long Beach.
    • 2000   “Publish or Perish: Adventures in the Print Trade.” Department of English, California State University, Long Beach.
    • 1996   “Isherwood’s Berlin: From Dream to Nightmare (and Back).” Department of English, California State University, Long Beach.
    • 1991   "Form Interrogating Itself. Postmodern Play in Peter Ackroyd's Fiction and Biography." Department of English,
                   California State University, Long Beach.
    • 1990     "New Approaches to Biography: Challenges from Critical Theory. Roth's Counterlife: Destabilizing The Facts."
                     Department of English, University of  Southern California
    • 1988     “Race, Gender and Class in Life Writing: Critique of the Canon," MLA, New Orleans.
    • 1987     “Autobiographies as Literary Texts," Department of English, University of California, Riverside, California.
    • 1986     "Literature and the Reading Public," College University and Professional Publishers' Council, St. Hilda's College, Oxford, England.
    • 1979     "Lives in Literature," Camden Public Libraries, Swiss Cottage, London, England.
    • 1974     "Shakespeare and the European Renaissance," The International School, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, England.
    • 1971     "Augustan Satire," and "The Rise of the English Novel," Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.

    TEACHING COMPETENCE

      Primary fields: Post-1900 British fiction; post-1900 British literature; post-1900 drama (in English); critical and literary theory;
      cultural studies.

      Secondary fields: Introduction to literature, fiction, poetry and drama; English literature from Beowulf to the present; American literature
      since 1865; world drama from the Greeks to the present day; world literature; the humanities since the Renaissance.

    OTHER ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

    • Westminster across Thames06Occasional consultant reader, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Papers on Language and Literature, and Twentieth Century Literature, 2005-8.
    • Consultant Reader, LIT : Literature, Interpretation, Theory,  1990-present.
    • Consultant Reader, Post Identity 1997-present.
    • Consultant, Modern Language Quarterly, 1988-1994.
    • Organizer, platform lectures, National Theatre, London, England, 1978-1987.
    • Member, management committee, Consortium for Drama and Media in Higher Education,
      London, England, 1979-1987.
    • Organizer, public lectures, the Poetry Society, London, England, 1981-1987
    • Organizer, public lectures, the New Fiction Society, London, England. 1980-1981.
    • Organizer, public lectures, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England, 1986-87.
    • Joint organizer, drama workshops, Royal Shakespeare Company (at the Pit and the Warehouse), London, England, 1978- 1983.
    • Secretary and member, editorial board, The London Review, 1967-1976.