United States Air Force Academy

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Dr. Mark David Kaufman

Associate Professor

Department of English & Fine Arts

Dr. Kaufman
Contact Information

(719) 333-8514

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Bio

Dr. Mark David Kaufman is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Fine Arts at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he teaches courses in writing, literature, and film studies.  He holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Tufts University, as well as an M.A. in English and B.A. in creative writing from Colorado State University.

He has presented papers at international conferences in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, and the Czech Republic, and his scholarship has appeared in a number of journals, including American Quarterly, Biography, Hypermedia Joyce Studies, James Joyce Quarterly, Virginia Woolf Miscellany, Twentieth-Century Literature, European Journal of American Studies, and The Space Between.  For his contributions to the Public Domain Review, a London-based website showcasing online archives, Dr. Kaufman was commended by Slate Magazine (“Reading History on the Web: the Best Sites,” May 2015).

Dr. Kaufman’s primary research interests focus on British and Irish modernism.  His M.A. thesis, Roll Away the Reel World: James Joyce, Visual Textuality, and the Art of Motion Pictures, was a national finalist for the Western Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Thesis Award (2003).  In recent years, he has cultivated an interest in the intersection of law and literature, especially as it pertains to the discord between government secrecy and freedom of expression.  He is currently at work on a book project, tentatively titled Spyography: Modernism, Espionage, and the Militant Aesthetic State, which examines the problematic recruitment of writers into the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) through literary texts, memoirs, and declassified government documents housed in the UK National Archives.

Education

Ph.D., English literature, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (2013)

M.A., English literature, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado (2002)

B.A., English and Creative Writing, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado (1999)

Professional Experience

Associate Professor, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado (2023-present)

Assistant Professor, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado (2019-2023)

Assistant Professor, Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania (2014-2019)

Adjunct Lecturer, Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2014)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts (2013)

Graduate Student Lecturer, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (2008-2012)

Senior Teacher for Observations, Caledonian School, Prague, Czech Republic (2005-2007)

ESL Instructor, Caledonian School, Prague, Czech Republic (2002-2007)

Graduate Teaching Assistant, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado (2000-2002)

Honors & Awards

Neag Professorship, Alvernia University (2018-2019)

Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, Center for the Humanities at Tufts (CHAT) (2012-2013)

Summer Fellowship for Doctoral Research in the Humanities, Tufts University (2011)

Outstanding Teacher and Teacher Mentor, Tufts University (2011, 2012)

Western Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Thesis Award, National Finalist (2003)

Research and Scholarly Interests

Modern British and Irish Literature

Espionage Fiction and Memoir

War Literature

Science Fiction

Film Studies

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“If Books Could Kill: Leo Tolstoy and the Cultural Cold War.” American Quarterly, vol. 75, no. 1, 2023, pp. 51-73.

“An Incident in Hyde Park: Basil Thomson, Roger Casement, and Wakean Coincidence.”  James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 57, nos. 3-4, 2020, pp. 245-62.

“The Desert of the Real: Diamonds Are Forever as a Hollywood Novel.”  The Many Facets of Diamonds Are Forever: James Bond on Page and Screen, edited by Oliver S. Buckton, Lexington Books, 2019, pp. 157-76.

“True Lies: Virginia Woolf, Espionage, and Feminist Agency.”  Twentieth-Century Literature, vol. 64, no. 3, 2018, pp. 317-46.

“Spyography: Compton Mackenzie, Modernism, and the Intelligence Memoir.”  The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, vol. 13, 2017, scalar.usc.edu/works/the-space-between-literature-and-culture-1914-1945/vol13_2017_kaufman.8.

“Woolf and Whistleblowing: From World War I to WikiLeaks.”  Virginia Woolf Miscellany, no. 91, 2017, pp. 22-24.

“Coming to Accounts: Fraud and Muckraking in Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition.”  European Journal of American Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 2013, journals.openedition.org/ejas/10148.

“A Hermeneutics of Recruitment: The Case of Wordsworth.”  Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, 2011, pp. 277-97.

“Slices of Life: The Artist as Vivisector in Giacomo Joyce.”  Hypermedia Joyce Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 2010, hjs.ff.cuni.cz/archives/v11_1/main/essays.php?essay=kaufman.

Public Writing

“The Writer as Liability: The Case of W. Somerset Maugham.” Writers in Intelligence, Brunel University London and King’s College London, 2 February 2023, https://writersinintelligence.org/somerset-maugham.

“Writing the Complete Character: Frank Budgen on James Joyce.” CRAFT Literary, 15 June 2021, https://www.craftliterary.com/2021/06/15/writing-complete-character-mark-david-kaufman/.

“Ignorant Armies: Private Snafu Goes to War.”  Public Domain Review, 25 Mar. 2015, https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/ignorant-armies-private-snafu-goes-to-war.

“Robert Baden-Powell’s Entomological Intrigues.”  Public Domain Review, 10 Jul. 2013, https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/robert-baden-powells-entomological-intrigues. Reprinted in The Public Domain Review: Selected Essays, The First Three Years: 2011-2013, edited by Adam Green, PDR Press, 2014, pp. 39-48.