Dr. Bruce Simon

Ph.D., Princeton University

http://citizense.blogspot.com/

I came to Fredonia's English Department in 1998 from Princeton University (MA and PhD in English) and Hamilton College (AB in English and Math). Except for stints as an instructor and writing tutor at the Princeton Writing Center and as a teaching assistant for Princeton's Department of English (once for Toni Morrison!)—along with a year teaching U.S. literatures and American Studies in Fukuoka, Japan, as a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Kyushu University, Seinan Gakuin University, and Fukuoka University—I have devoted my career to Fredonia English. I am currently serving my second one-year term as Chairperson of Fredonia's University Senate and am the Immediate Past Vice President/Secretary for SUNY's University Faculty Senate. Over the years, I have served as faculty advisor to Amnesty International, Anime Club, the Black Student Union, Gamers Guild, Hillel, and Japanese Club. My research and teaching interests span the range of U.S. literatures and their intersections with American studies, Black studies, critical race/ethnicity studies, and postcolonial studies. Although my primary research focus is on pre-Civil War America, I'm also interested in the history and governance of higher education, the nature of academic and intellectual work, the structure and status of the profession, and the conditions of teaching and learning. These interests have led me to take an active role in shared governance at Fredonia and across SUNY. I currently chair the Executive Committee of Fredonia's University Senate and UFS's Governance Committee, and serve on the UFS's Executive Committee. I am a past Chairperson of the English Department, past Vice Chairperson of Fredonia's University Senate, and a past chair of the Planning and Budget Committee. I have also played a leading role in the Fredonia Chapter of United University Professions (the faculty-professionals union for SUNY employees). I have been a member of the chapter's Executive Board for two decades and during that stretch have served as the chapter Officer for Contingents, Membership Development Officer, and Vice President for Academics. I have been one of Fredonia's delegates to the statewide UUP Delegate Assembly for just as long and have served on statewide committees on Contingent Employment, the Future of Public Higher Education, Globalization and Corporatization, and Legislation/Outreach.

Office Hours

  • Monday: 10 am-11 am
  • Tuesday: 10 am-1 pm
  • Wednesday: 10 am-11 am
  • Thursday: 10 am-1 pm
  • Friday: 10 am-11 am
  • by appointment

Teaching Interests

U.S. Literatures, American Studies, Black Studies, Critical Race/Ethnicity Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Science Fiction and Fantasy

Research Interests

American Studies, Black Studies, Critical Race/Ethnicity Studies, Critical Higher Education Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Race and American Literature, U.S. Literatures

Awards and Honors

  • SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service, State University of New York (2018).
  • SUNY Shared Governance Award, SUNY (2014).
  • Fulbright Lecturing Grant in American Studies, Fulbright Foundation (2006).
  • Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (1996).
  • Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Fellowship, Princeton University (1994).
  • Beinecke Brothers Memorial Scholarship, Sperry Fund (1990).

Professional Membership

  • C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne Society
  • Modern Language Association
  • Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor

Intellectual Contributions

  • "Introduction," Book XI: A journal of literary philosophy (2019).
  • "Improving Shared Governance through Bylaws, Technology, and Collaboration," Exploring Shared Governance in Higher Education/SUNY Press (2017).
  • "'Illegal Knowledge': Strategies for New Media Activism," The Politics of Information: The Electronic Mediation of Social Change/Alt-X Press (2003).
  • "'Illegal Knowledge': Strategies for New Media Activism," electronic book review (2003).
  • "Introduction: The Prison Issue," Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor (2000).
  • "Hybridity in the Americas: Reading Condé, Mukherjee, and Hawthorne," Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature/University Press of Mississippi (2000).
  • "White-Blindness," The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States (2nd ed.)/Pearson (2000).
  • "Introduction: Striking Back," Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor (1999).
  • "Traumatic Repetition: Gayl Jones’s Corregidora," Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century/NYU Press (1997).
  • "Caught in Space? The Configuration of a Twentysomething Generation," Critical Matrix: The Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture (1993).

Presentations

  • "Toward Resolving the Race and Hawthorne Problem: Racialist Aesthetics and Racializing Histories from ‘Old News’ to ‘Main-street’ to 'Chiefly About War-Matters'," International Poe and Hawthorne Conference (2018).