Thomas L. Loebel
Associate Professor
Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies
Office: York Lanes, 230
Phone: (416)736-5521
Email: loebel@yorku.ca
Primary website: http://www.yorku.ca/loebel/
Thomas Loebel teaches and researches American and African American literature in the 19th & early 20th-century, literary and cultural theory, psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. Current interests include the lost object of the voice, impersonation, and intersections between psychoanalytic object relations and object-oriented ontology. Author of The Letter and the Spirit of Nineteenth-Century American Literature (MQUP 2005), he has three book-length studies in the pipe: “Standard Deviation: Vocal Colour and American National Identity” examines what might be called the “inflections of anxiety” over legitimacy and exceptionalism in pre-20th century American literature; “Objet Relations: Beauty, Jouissance, and the Schauplatz of Henry James” rethinks the relations between desire, das Ding, objet a and aesthetical judgment of the beautiful through a Lacanian reading of The Spoils of Poynton; “’Hope is the thing with feathers’: Pre-Consciousness, Daydreaming, and Critique in Dickinson, Ellison, and Kushner,” takes seriously a Blochian approach to pre-consciousness and an awakening function of word-presentations to argue for the forward-thinking, revelatory, and redemptive potential of critical reading.
Degrees
Ph.D., English (American Literature), SUNY at BuffaloM.A., English (Literary Theory), SUNY at Buffalo
M.A., English (Curriculum), University of Toronto (OlSE)
B.A., Political Science/Philosophy, McGill University
Professional Leadership
Conference Organisation
18/10/1997 “A Continuum of Teaching:
English Language Arts from the High School to the University”
This conference brought high school English teachers from the GTA and southern Ontario together with York’s English faculty to discuss pedagogy and the issues around the transition from high school to university. Full report of the colloquium is available
Research Interests
The Letter and the Spirit of Nineteenth-Century American Literature: Justice, Politics and Theology. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. 352 pages.
"Beyond Her Self," Contemporary Essays on The House of Mirth, ed. Deborah Esch (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge U P, 2002).
"Interview: Emmanuel Levinas and François Poirié," 90 pp., co-translator with Jill Robbins and Marcus Coelen, Is it Righteous to Be? Interviews, ed. Jill Robbins (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002).",Interview: Emmanuel Levinas and François Poirié"
"Interview: Emmanuel Levinas and Miriam Anissimov," 12 pp., co-translator with Jill Robbins and Marcus Coelen, ibid.
Review of Anthea Kraut. Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Stagings of Zora Neale Hurston. In Modern Drama. 53:1. Spring 2010. 122-124.
Review of Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature, by Tracy Fessenden. The European Legacy 13:4. June 2008: 521-22.
Review of Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Culture of Conversation, by Peter Gibian. ESC: English Studies in Canada. Vol. 29, Nos. 3 & 4, September & December, 2003: 276-79.
Review of Michelle Burnham, Captivity and Sentiment: Cultural Exchange in American Literature, 1682-1861, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 11, No. 2, Jan. 1999.
“’A’ Confession: How to Avoid Speaking the Name of the Father.” Arizona Quarterly. Vol. 59. Number 1 (Spring 2003): 1-29.
"Jefferson Davis on the Plains of Abraham," CR: The New Centennial Review, Borders/Americas, Vol. 1, Number 2 (Fall 2001), 109-138.
"Love of Masculinity," Faulkner Journal, Special Edition on Faulkner and Masculinity, XV: 1&2 (Fall 1999/Spring 2000), 83-106.
First Before Second: A Critical Evaluation of Language Research Affecting ESL-Literacy Programming. (Toronto: Learnx/Toronto Board of Education, 1993)
Thomas Loebel teaches and researches American and African American literature in the 19th & early 20th-century, literary and cultural theory, psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. Current interests include the lost object of the voice, impersonation, and intersections between psychoanalytic object relations and object-oriented ontology. Author of The Letter and the Spirit of Nineteenth-Century American Literature (MQUP 2005), he has three book-length studies in the pipe: “Standard Deviation: Vocal Colour and American National Identity” examines what might be called the “inflections of anxiety” over legitimacy and exceptionalism in pre-20th century American literature; “Objet Relations: Beauty, Jouissance, and the Schauplatz of Henry James” rethinks the relations between desire, das Ding, objet a and aesthetical judgment of the beautiful through a Lacanian reading of The Spoils of Poynton; “’Hope is the thing with feathers’: Pre-Consciousness, Daydreaming, and Critique in Dickinson, Ellison, and Kushner,” takes seriously a Blochian approach to pre-consciousness and an awakening function of word-presentations to argue for the forward-thinking, revelatory, and redemptive potential of critical reading.
Degrees
Ph.D., English (American Literature), SUNY at BuffaloM.A., English (Literary Theory), SUNY at Buffalo
M.A., English (Curriculum), University of Toronto (OlSE)
B.A., Political Science/Philosophy, McGill University
Professional Leadership
Conference Organisation
18/10/1997 “A Continuum of Teaching:
English Language Arts from the High School to the University”
This conference brought high school English teachers from the GTA and southern Ontario together with York’s English faculty to discuss pedagogy and the issues around the transition from high school to university. Full report of the colloquium is available
Research Interests
All Publications
"Beyond Her Self," Contemporary Essays on The House of Mirth, ed. Deborah Esch (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge U P, 2002).
"Interview: Emmanuel Levinas and François Poirié," 90 pp., co-translator with Jill Robbins and Marcus Coelen, Is it Righteous to Be? Interviews, ed. Jill Robbins (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002).",Interview: Emmanuel Levinas and François Poirié"
"Interview: Emmanuel Levinas and Miriam Anissimov," 12 pp., co-translator with Jill Robbins and Marcus Coelen, ibid.
Review of Anthea Kraut. Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Stagings of Zora Neale Hurston. In Modern Drama. 53:1. Spring 2010. 122-124.
Review of Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature, by Tracy Fessenden. The European Legacy 13:4. June 2008: 521-22.
Review of Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Culture of Conversation, by Peter Gibian. ESC: English Studies in Canada. Vol. 29, Nos. 3 & 4, September & December, 2003: 276-79.
Review of Michelle Burnham, Captivity and Sentiment: Cultural Exchange in American Literature, 1682-1861, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 11, No. 2, Jan. 1999.
The Letter and the Spirit of Nineteenth-Century American Literature: Justice, Politics and Theology. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. 352 pages.
“’A’ Confession: How to Avoid Speaking the Name of the Father.” Arizona Quarterly. Vol. 59. Number 1 (Spring 2003): 1-29.
"Jefferson Davis on the Plains of Abraham," CR: The New Centennial Review, Borders/Americas, Vol. 1, Number 2 (Fall 2001), 109-138.
"Love of Masculinity," Faulkner Journal, Special Edition on Faulkner and Masculinity, XV: 1&2 (Fall 1999/Spring 2000), 83-106.
First Before Second: A Critical Evaluation of Language Research Affecting ESL-Literacy Programming. (Toronto: Learnx/Toronto Board of Education, 1993)
