Dr. John Newton
Qualifications
- M.A. (Canterbury)
- Ph.D. (Melbourne)
Research Interests
John wrote his Ph.D. thesis on Sylvia Plath, and has continued to research and supervise in the broad area of American literature. Recently he has written on the Native American poet and fiction writer Sherman Alexie, but most of his research work concentrates on Aotearoa New Zealand. He has published articles on contemporary New Zealand poetry, on the function of homophobia in settler nationalism, on the South Island myth, and on other mid-twentieth-century cultural and literary issues. Currently, he is concentrating on Pakeha negotiations of Maori culture.
Recent Publications
"Poetry and Other Marvels: D'Arcy Cresswell on His Own Terms," Journal of New Zealand Literature, in press.
"The Death-Throes of Nationalism," Landfall 205 (2003), 90-101.
"Shepherds who call each other darling: Writing Around Homophobia in Sargeson and Glover," New Literatures Review 38 (2002), 29-45.
"Sherman Alexie's Autoethnography," Contemporary Literature 42.2 (2001), 413-28.
"The South Island Myth: A Short History," Australian Canadian Studies 18. 1 & 2 (2000), 23-39.
"Ghost-towns and Competences: Teaching Historical Discontinuity," English in Aotearoa 41 (2000), 21-27.
"The Typewriter in the Next Room," Landfall 200 (2000), 141-52.
"Homophobia and the Social Pattern: Sargeson's Queer Nation," Landfall 199 (2000), 91-107.
"Colonialism above the Snowline: Baughan, Ruskin and the South Island Myth," Journal of Commonwealth Literature 34.2 (1999), 85-96.
"Reading Bleeding: Sylvia Plath and the Poetics of Clinical Reductivism," Hysteric 1 (1995), 1-15.
"The Old Man's Example: Manhire in the Seventies," Mark Williams and Michele Leggott, eds., Opening the Book: New Essays on New Zealand Writing (Auckland: AUP, 1995), 162-87.
"Sylvia Plath: Death and Gossip," Lyn McCredden and Stephanie Trigg, eds., The Space of Poetry: Australian Essays on Contemporary Poetics (Parkville: University of Melbourne, 1995) 1-11.
Background
MA from Canterbury, PhD from the University of Melbourne. Has taught for two years at Melbourne, and since 1995 at Canterbury. In 1999 he received the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching. His poetry has been widely published and can be found in most recent anthologies of New Zealand verse. Has just completed his third year of undergraduate Maori.