Bruce Burningham, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Stevenson 114
438-7975
I am currently finishing up a new book manuscript entitled “Tinted Mirrors: Baroque Reflections on Contemporary Culture.” This book consists of a collection of critical essays examining a number of contemporary cultural texts, such as John Ford’s Stagecoach, Johnny Rotten’s and Marilyn Manson’s rock autobiographies, Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story films, Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh, Chuck Palahniuk’s and David Fincher’s Fight Club, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, and the Wachowski Brother’s Matrix trilogy, by reflecting them against a cluster of early modern Spanish literary works, principally Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote.
What “Tinted Mirrors” seeks to accomplish with this series of cross-cultural, cross-epochal comparisons is to explore the ways in which each of these disparate texts illuminates its counterpart through a parallel critical reflection. In essence, what “Tinted Mirrors” seeks to demonstrate is that the imperial cultures of baroque Spain and our own postmodern era are not quite as distant as they may initially appear.
Student Qualities: I am looking for someone who can help with the final editing of this manuscript. I need a highly motivated, dependable person who can help proofread the manuscript, track down various bibliographic entries, double-check the accuracy of all citations, and possibly help create an index, etc.
A reading knowledge of Spanish would be helpful but not essential.
This project would be ideal for students interested in literary theory, cultural studies, and contemporary popular culture.
