Dr. Kenneth Paradis
Co-Coordinator, Contemporary Studies Program
Contact Information
Email: kparadis@wlu.caPhone: (519) 756-8228 ext.5838
Office Location: RCW 320
Languages Spoken
English
Academic Background
Hons. BA, English Language and Literature. WLU, 1991.
MA, English. McMaster, 1993.
PhD., English (American literature and culture). McMaster, 2000.
Biography
I grew up on a small farm (an apiary) in the Slate River Valley, outside of Thunder Bay. I did my undergraduate work at WLU, though it took a long time because I took some years off to live in Central Europe after the fall of the communist governments there. Returning to Canada I did my graduate studies at McMaster, and after teaching for a couple of years there and at SUNY Buffalo, I moved to Halifax to work at Dalhousie. But my family's roots are in Ontario, so was delighted to be able to move back to work in the uniquely interdisciplinary environment here at Laurier Brantford.
I don't have a whole lot of spare time left over after work and after chasing the many kids in my house around, but when I do get a bit of it I like to do a bit of swimming, and to get out and hike someplace with lots of trees. The Dundas Valley is one of my favourite places in the world.
Research Interests:
Though I love to teach American literature most of my research has dealt with popular fiction and the various ways that Americans represented themselves in the twentieth century. My earlier work looked at representations of paranoia in clinical, popular and political discourses, focusing on the way that paranoia (along with other newly reconfigured varieties of madness, such as hysteria) allowed people in the twentieth century to conceptualize psychopathology in terms of gender.
For the past few years, though, I've been interested in popular religious fiction and American evangelical popular culture. I have been exploring ways that American evangelical writers and readers successfully combine things taken from pop culture with ways of thinking and reading that are hundreds of years old that are deeply embedded in American culture.
Courses:
EN 204: Strategies in the Analysis of Effective Writing (Rhetoric and Writing)
EN 218: Contemporary American Literature
EN 266: American Literature of the Early 20th Century
CT 327: Understanding Popular Culture
CT 460: Popular Movies and Cultural Critique
EN 420: Pulp and Popular Fiction
EN 692: Evangelical Fiction and American Faith
Recent Research:
"Romance Narrative in Conservative Evangelical Homiletic." The Educated Imagination.
Sex, Paranoia and
Modern Masculinity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006.
In Progress:
Areas of Expertise
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