Walter A. Davis

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Walter A. "Mac" Davis (born November 9, 1942) is an American philosopher, critic, and playwright. He is Professor Emeritus of English at

dialectics and postmodernism
. For a more general audience, he has written plays and two volumes of essays in cultural criticism.

Education and academic career

Born and raised in

University of California at Santa Barbara from 1969 to 1977 and at Ohio State University from 1977 to 2002, when he retired to focus on writing.[2]

Literary theory and criticism

As a theorist and critic of literature, Davis has been associated with the '

A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey into Night, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—in terms of their psychological impact upon the audience. Critic Frank Lentricchia called Davis's Get The Guests "unparalleled" and wrote of the author, "Davis is a man of the theatre, he reads plays as theatrical events, and he can get at plays in ways that most people of the theatre cannot because he is a superb theorist and scholar as well."[5]

Philosophical works

Davis's most wide-ranging philosophical work is Inwardness and Existence: Subjectivity in/and Hegel, Heidegger, Marx, and Freud. In this book, Davis adumbrates a theory of the human subject (less technically, "the self") that dialectically integrates four theories of subjectivity usually considered incompatible:

Anglican theologian Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury,[6] and film theorist Todd McGowan, who has said of it, "No one who reads [Inwardness and Existence] will ever think about existence itself in the same way again. Davis’s landmark work will profoundly transform anyone who reads it."[7]

Building on the idea of anti-bildung, Davis's 2001 book Deracination: Historicity, Hiroshima, and the Tragic Imperative takes the historical trauma of the first atomic bombing as the basis for a radically interdisciplinary investigation of trauma generally and of historical discourse in particular, culminating in a chapter that combines psychoanalysis, history and aesthetics to argue for "artistic cognition as a distinct and primary way of knowing."[8] The "deracination" of the title refers to the necessity of "deracinating," or "rooting out," the ideological "guarantees" that structure our responses to events both personal and political.

Cultural criticism

Davis has written two volumes of essays in cultural criticism. Death's Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche Since 9-11 (2006) contains Davis's clearest and most direct statement of his concept of "deracinating" the "guaranteees"

My Name is Rachel Corrie as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the role of the arts (specifically the theatre) in post 9-11 America. The book includes Davis's "Manifesto for a Progressive Theatre" and an argument for monologue as the form that can best accomplish the necessary task of dramatically examining what Davis calls "the tragic structure of experience.".[10]

Plays

Davis is both a playwright and an actor in regional theatre. His plays include: The Holocaust Memorial: A Play About Hiroshima; An Evening with JonBenet Ramsey, an exploration of the effects of childhood trauma; Between Two Deaths: Life on the Row, a monologue spoken by a murderer on death row; and Trim: The Tyger Woods Story, a satire of celebrity, media and race in America. As an actor his roles have ranged from

Oscar Madison in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple to the title role in King Lear.[2]

Fiction

Davis is currently[when?] at work on an epic-length novel, a vast bildungsroman titled The Last Catholic.

Select bibliography

Non-fiction

  • The Act of Interpretation: A Critique of Literary Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
  • Inwardness and Existence: Subjectivity in/and Hegel, Heidegger, Marx, and Freud. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
  • Get The Guests: Psychoanalysis Modern American Drama, and the Audience. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
  • Deracination: Historicity, Hiroshima, and the Tragic Imperative. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.
  • Death's Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche Since 9-11. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2006.
  • Art and Politics: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, Theatre. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2007.

Plays

  • The Holocaust Memorial: A Play About Hiroshima. Bloomington: First Books, 2000.
  • An Evening With JonBenet Ramsey: A Play and Two Essays. iUniverse, 2003.
  • Between Two Deaths: Life on the Row (monologue of a murderer on death row), included in Art and Politics, 2007.
  • Trim: The Tyger Woods Story, 2010.
  • Aberration of Starlight: A Play About Emily Dickinson, 2013.

Fiction

  • The Last Catholic: A Novel (in progress)

Notes and references

  1. ^ "Walter A. Davis: Curriculum Vita". Archived from the original on 2006-09-06. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  2. ^ a b "Walter A. Davis » Works: Vita". www.walteradavis.com.
  3. ^ Richter, David H., The Critical Tradition, New York: St. Martin's, 1989. 735.
  4. ^ Davis, Walter A. "The Humanist Tradition: The Philosophical and Rhetorical Roots of Ideological Paralysis," Art and Politics, London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2007.
  5. ^ Davis, Walter A. Get The Guests: Psychoanalysis Modern American Drama, and the Audience. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. back cover.
  6. ^ Williams, Rowan. On Christian Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 239-40
  7. ISBN 0299120147
    .
  8. ^ Davis, Walter A. Deracination. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 193.
  9. ^ Davis, Walter A. Death's Dream Kingdom. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2006.
  10. ^ Davis, Walter A. Art and Politics. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2007. 119

External links

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