Latham, Sean (Patrick) 1971-

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LATHAM, Sean (Patrick) 1971-

PERSONAL:

Born December 31, 1971, in Colorado Springs, CO; married 1995; children: one daughter. Education: Swarthmore College, B.A., 1994; Brown University, A.M., 1996, Ph.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, University of Tulsa, 600 South College Ave., Tulsa, OK 74104. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Brown University, Providence, RI, computing coordinator, 1997-2000, assistant professor in department of modern culture and media, 2000-01; University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, assistant professor of English, 2001—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

University of Tulsa summer faculty development research grant, 2001-02, 2002-03.

WRITINGS:

Am I a Snob?: Modernism and the Novel, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 2003.

Contributor to books, including A William Carlos Williams Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press (New York, NY), 2001, and Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2003. Contributor to periodicals, including Modern Fiction Studies and Mississippi Quarterly. Codirector, Modernist Journals Project, 2002—; member of editorial board, James Joyce Bibliography, 2003—. Editorial assistant, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 1995-2000; editor, James Joyce Quarterly, 2001—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sean Latham's Am I a Snob?: Modernism and the Novel examines the character of the snob in the works of British writers William Makepeace Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Dorothy Sayers. By looking at the novels written by these authors, Latham traces the evolution of the snob character from a vulgar individual to a man or woman who has elevated tastes which set him or her apart from the majority of society. He further argues that modernism as a whole tended to view the snob as a favorable rather than unfavorable character because modernists also saw themselves as apart from and above the cultural mainstream. "Although some of Latham's observations are highly debatable," Shaw Gene wrote in a review of Am I a Snob? for Library Journal, "they are always intriguing and thought-provoking."