Matthew Parfitt
Associate Professor, Rhetoric
Research Interests
Composition; literary theory; British literature 1880–1930; gender studies; World War I; Robert Frost; artificial intelligence and natural language generation
Teaching Interests
Rhetoric; writing; the essay
Selected Publications
Books
Pursuing Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader (with Dawn Skorzcewski, Brandeis University). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2015. (A single-themed reader for writing courses.)
Writing in Response: A Short Rhetoric. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Second edition, 2015. (380 pp.)
Conflicts and Crises in the Composition Classroom — And What Instructors Can Do About Them. Edited collection, with Dawn Skorczewski (Brandeis U.) Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann/Boynton-Cook, 2003.
Cultural Conversations: The Presence of the Past (with Regina Hansen, Boston U., and Stephen Dilks, U. of Missouri at Kansas City). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001.
Book in Progress
Comrade Love: Inversion and Friendship in the Literature of the First World War. In progress.
Selected Articles
“1908, Carpenter Publishes The Intermediate Sex” In Great Events from History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Events. (Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2006) 55-58.
“Anthem for Doomed Youth.” In Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition. Ed. Tracy Irons-Georges. Pasadena: Salem Press, Jan, 2002.
“Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949” and “Two Witches.” In The Robert Frost Encyclopedia. Ed. Nancy Tuten, et al. Greenwood Publishing, 2000.
“T. E. Lawrence” and “Romantic Friendships (in literature).” In The Reader’s Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies. Ed. Tim Murphy. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000.
“War,” “Wilfred Owen” and “T. E. Lawrence.” In The Encyclopedia of Gay Histories and Cultures, Volume 2. Ed. George E. Haggerty. Garland Publishing, 1999.
“A Yield of Whispers: Frost’s ‘Mowing’ and Heidegger’s ‘Earth and World’” Budhi 2:2 (Fall, 1998) 43-61.
“Writing With a Computer,” Chapter 21 of The Bedford Guide for College Writers, fifth edition, by X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy and Sylvia A. Holladay. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999).
“Reading Poetry with Ricoeur’s Dialectical Hermeneutics.” Budhi (Spring, 1997).
“Frost’s ‘Modern Georgics.’” The Robert Frost Review, (Fall 1996), 54-70.
“War Literature” and “T. E. Lawrence” in The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage. Ed. Claude J. Summers. (Henry Holt, 1995.)
Review of Norman Holland, The Brain of Robert Frost, in Textual Practice, (Winter 1990).
Other Professional Activity and/or Awards
Peyton Richter Award for interdisciplinary teaching (2002)