Dr.  John  Lowe 

Warren Professor  - English

Bachelor's Degree(s): B.A., Vanderbilt University

Master's Degree: M.Phil., Columbia University; M.A., Georgia State University

PhD: Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Phone: (225) 578-3177

E-mail: jlowe@lsu.edu

Office: 213C Allen

 

Area of Interest

Southern, African American, Asian American, Louisiana and ethnic literature and theory; humor

Awards & Honors

MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contributions to American Ethnic Literature, 2008; 

N.E.H. Research Fellowship, 2008-2009; 

ATLAS Research Fellowship, 2007-08; 

Edna and Norman Freehling Fellowship in South Atlantic Studies, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Spring, 2007; 

LSU Foundation Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award for Graduate Instruction, 2006; 

Manship Foundation Research Grant, Summer, 2005; 

President Elect, Society for the Study of Southern Literature, 2009-11; 

President, Southern American Studies Association, 2005-2007 ; 

President, MELUS, 1997-2000; 

LSU Distinguished Faculty Award, 1999; 

Senior Fulbright Professorship, University of Munich, 1995-96;  

Director, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars, 1992, 1997, 2004; 

American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1992-93; 

President, Louisiana Folklore Society, 1991-92;

 LSU Faculty Research Awards, Summer, 1991, 1989; 

N.E.H. Travel Grant, Summer, 1990; 

Ford Foundation Faculty Fellowship, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, 1986-87; 

Andrew W. Mellon Faculty  Fellow, Harvard University, l985-86; 

N.E.H. Summer Seminar, "Humor in Cross-Cultural Perspective," Berkeley,  l984; 

Fulbright Scholar,  India, Summer, l983; 

Lilly Foundation Summer Grant, l983; 

Fellow, Yale Summer Institute, "Reconstructing American Literature," 1982

Selected Publications

Books:

 Faulkner’s Fraternal Fury: Sibling Rivalry, Racial Kinship, and Democracy (under contract, LSU Press); Approaches to Teaching Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works (editor).  NewYork: MLA, 2009; Louisiana Culture from the Colonial Era to Katrina (editor). Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2008; Bridging Southern Cultures (editor).  Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2005; .The Future of Southern Letters (co-editor with Jefferson Humphries).  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1996; Conversations with Ernest Gaines (editor). Jackson:  University Press of Mississippi, 1995; Jump at the Sun:  Zora Neale Hurston's Cosmic Comedy. Urbana:  University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Books in Progress: Calypso Magnolia: The Caribbean Side of the South; The Americanization of Ethnic Humor

Recent Essays:

“‘Laughin’ Up a World’: Teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God Through Humor” and“Modes of Black Masculinity in Jonah’s Gourd Vine.”  Approaches to Teaching Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works, 2010.
“Richard Wright and the CircumCaribbean.”  Mississippi Quarterly, forthcoming.
“Richard Wright and Transnational Culture: Pagan Spain.” Southern Quarterly, 46, 3 (2009): 69-99.
“Creole Cultures and National Identity After Katrina.” Louisiana Culture from the Colonial Era to Katrina.  1-21.
“The Carnival Voices of A Confederacy of Dunces.”Louisiana Culture from the Colonial Era to Katrina.  159-190.
“African American Humor.” Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide.  (2 vols.)   Ed.  Maurice Charney.  Westport, Connecticut: Praeger (2005): Vol. 1.  34-47.
“Calypso Magnolia: The Caribbean Side of the South.”  South Central Review 22, 1 (2005):  54- 80.
“Constructing a Cultural Theory for the South.”  Bridging Southern Cultures.  Ed. John Lowe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University press, 2005.1-28.
“Re-creating a Public for the Plantation: Reconstruction Myths of the Biracial Southern ‘Family.’”  Bridging Southern Cultures.  Ed. John Lowe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.  221-253.
“MELUS Meets the World: The Story of the Oversea Chapters.”  MELUS, 29, 3/4 (2004):   499-513.
“The Construction and Deconstruction of Masculinity in The Yearling.”  Rawlings cluster, Mississippi Quarterly, LVII, 2 (2004): 231-246.
“Reconstruction Revisited: Plantation School Writers, Post-Colonial Theory, and Confederates in Brazil.”  Mississippi Quarterly, LVII, 1 (2004): 5-26.
“Fingering the Jagged Grain: Edward P. Jones and The Known World."  The World and I,19, 5 (2004): 197-205.
“Fraternal Fury: Faulkner, World War I, and Myths of Masculinity.”  Faulkner and War. Ed. Ann     Abadie and Noel Polk.  Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.  70-101.  
“‘Let the People Sing!’ Zora Neale Hurston and the Dream of a Negro Theatre.”  Southern Women Playwrights.  Ed. Robert McDonald and Linda Paige.  University of Alabama Press, 2002.  11-26.
“The Fraternal Fury of the Falkners and the Bundrens.”  Mississippi Quarterly, LV, 3 (2001). 595-624.