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Jim Clements

Professor (Teaching) of Writing
Jim Clements
Email jamescle@usc.edu

Biography

Dr. James Clements’ completed his PhD in English Literature at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He has lived and worked in Canada, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

His book, Mysticism and the Mid-Century novel, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011. He has regularly written and presented on composition and writing pedagogy, including papers on creativity, originality, and plagiarism. He has also published  on Patrick White, Iris Murdoch, Saul Bellow, William Golding, and other mid-century novelists. 

Dr. Clements has also released four albums: Kill Devil Hills (2004), When The Saints Go (2008), The Road to Anhedonia (2011), and A Failure (2018). He has also published several academic and popular articles on music, with recent pieces on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

Education

  • Ph.D. English Literature, University of Cambridge, 12/2008
  • M.A. English Literature, University College, London, 8/2005
  • B.A. English Literature and Religious Studies, University of Toronto, 8/2003

  • Conference Presentations

    • Thinking Inside The Box: Anxiety, Formula, and Creativity in Freshman Writing Courses. , Conference on College Composition and CommunicationRoundtable/Panel, Portland, Oregon, 2016-2017
    • Imitations: Love as Pity in The Heart of the Matter. , Modernist Studies Association ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, Brighton, United Kingdom, 2015-2016
    • All Is Not Flatly Knowable’: Saul Bellow and the Post-World War II Mystical Turn , Modern Language Association ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2014-2015
    • Reconsidering Iris Murdoch’s Mystical Novelist , Modernist Studies Association ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, Brighton, United Kingdom, 2013-2014
    • Beck’s Map, Wittgenstein’s Net: The London Underground in Iris Murdoch’s A Word Child , Association for the Study of the Arts of the PresentRoundtable/Panel, Detroit, Michigan, 2012-2013
    • Narrative Hubris in the Novels of Graham Greene and Muriel Spark , Rocky Mountain Modern Language AssociationRoundtable/Panel, Boulder, Colorado, 2012-2013
    • Panegyric Blue: Mysticism Through Ekphrasis in Patrick White’s Riders in the Chariot , Image and Text ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, London, United Kingdom, 2006-2007
    • Shaping Silence: Speaking the Ineffable in The Sea, The Sea. , Iris Murdoch ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, Kingston, United Kingdom, 2006-2007

  • Book

    • Clements, J. Mysticism and the Mid-Century Novel. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

    Book Chapters

    • Clements, J. (2016). Iris Murdoch: An Anatomy of Failure: From A Severed Head (1960) to The Sea, The Sea (1978). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Journal Article

    • Clements, J. ‘Trust Your Makers of Things’: The Metafictional Pact in Dave Eggers’ You Shall Know Our Velocity. Critique – Studies in Contemporary Fiction 56. Vol. 56. 2 2015
    • Clements, J., Gauvain, R. (2014). ‘The Marvel of Islam’: Reconciling Muslim Epistemologies through a New Islamic Origin Saga in Naif-Al Matawi’s The 99. The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Vol. 25 (1)
    • Clements, J. (2014). ‘The Thing in the Box’: William Golding’s ‘Miss Pulkinhorn’ as Apophatic Literature.”. Religion and Literature. Vol. 46 (3)
    • Clements, J. (2009). ‘Verbal Sludge’: Mud and Malleability in the Novels of Patrick White. Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature. pp. 147-152.
    • Clements, J. (2009). Bottomless Surfaces: Saul Bellow’s ‘Refreshed Phrenology. Journal of Modern Literature. Vol. 33 (1), pp. 75-91.
    • Clements, J. (2005). ‘I’m Not There’: Bob Dylan Disappears Behind His Self Portrait. The Bridge. (22), pp. 14-42.
    • Album, Kill Devil Hills, 2003-2004
    • Album, When The Saints Go, 2007-2008
    • Album, The Road To Anhedonia, 2011-2012
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