Daniel Dissinger

Daniel Dissinger is a member of the Writing Program at USC.  As a Kerouac and Beat studies scholar, he earned his PhD and MA from Saint John’s University, as well as an MFA from The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.  Daniel’s dissertation examined the early, pre-On the Road novels of Jack Kerouac examining the reflective writing properties of the “Duluoz Legend” and Kerouac’s questions about masculine identity with regards to relationships between fathers and sons. 

His ten plus years of teaching in higher education brought him to a variety of universities before landing at USC. Being an adjunct in SUNY College at Old Westbury’s English Department and First Year Department, CUNY York, Saint John’s University, and The Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies shaped his non-traditional no-nonsense Freirean pedagogical approach to Rhetoric & Composition.

His scholarly curiosity has lead him to participate at CCCC’s, The Intercultural Horizons Conference, NeMLA, and PAMLA.

Daniel has had the honor of performing, curating, and co-curating at the Bowery Poetry Club, The Nuyorican Poet’s Café, The New York Poetry Festival, The Queens Lit Festival, and the International Poetry Festival at Bridgewater College. There are many other small, large, and odd spaces he’s performed at in New York, and he looks forward to continuing this here in LA.

In 2016 his work was part of The Living Poetry Project in Van Nuys, CA.  Recently, he performed at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA.

Daniel’s poetry has been published in a variety of journals such as Monkey Puzzle Magazine, 580 Split (online), the first issue of Trunk of Delirium, and/or V2, and Sensitive Skin, as well as the anthology Before Passing by Great Weather for Media.  In 2018, Great Weather for Media published his interview with award-winning writer Tim Z. Hernandez in their anthology The Other Side of Violet.  2013, he was featured as the “Centre Stage Poet” in England’s Decanto Magazine.  His first chapbook, tracing the shape…, was published by Shadow Mountain Press in 2012. 

• M.F.A. Writing and Poetics, Naropa University
• M.A. , Saint John’s University
• Ph.D. English, Saint John’s University