Marianna Torgovnick
· Professor of EnglishDuke University · English
Active 1977–2025
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About
Marianna Torgovnick writes on the novel and novel theory, film, postcolonialism, modernism, and the twentieth century more generally, and especially on contemporary American culture. Her work is broadly interdisciplinary and has been taught in Art History, Anthropology, and Religion courses as well as English, Literature, and Theory. She has published several books, including 'Closure in the Novel,' 'The Visual Arts, Pictorialism, and the Novel: James, Lawrence, and Woolf,' 'Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives,' 'Crossing Ocean Parkway,' which won an American Book Award, 'Primitive Passions: Men, Women, and the Quest for Ecstasy,' and 'The War Complex: World War II in Our Time,' about memories and perceptions of the Second World War in the twenty-first century. She has also written articles for general interest publications. Professor Torgovnick currently directs The Duke in New York Arts and Media Program, taught in New York, and returns annually to teach 'America Dreams American Movies.'
Research topics
- Computer Science
- Sociology
- Political Science
- Aesthetics
- Law
- Psychoanalysis
- Psychology
- History
- Media studies
- Literature
Selected publications
:<i>The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession Went Global</i>
Critical Inquiry · 2025-09-01
article1st authorCorrespondingBerghahn Books · 2024-04-06
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingBomb and Climate Change in Fact and Fiction
New American Studies Journal · 2022
1st authorCorrespondingThis essay counterpoints two existential threats in our lifetimes—nuclear apocalypse and climate catastrophe—comparing how they have been recorded in historical documents and how they have registered in the American imagination. It surveys non-fiction and fiction, including a few films, to uncover persistent patterns of American denial that may lead—in fact, scientists increasingly believe will lead—to climate apocalypse. Strong historical and thematic similarities exist until, surprisingly and…
2021
1st authorCorresponding7. Food as Anthropological Lens
Fordham University Press eBooks · 2021-09-10
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 3 shared
Maurice Charney
- 3 shared
Peter Berek
Amherst College
- 3 shared
Jerry Aline Flieger
Rutgers Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
- 2 shared
Brenda R. Silver
- 2 shared
Hanna Charney
University at Albany, State University of New York
- 2 shared
Tom Bishop
University of Auckland
- 2 shared
Morris Dickstein
- 2 shared
Wolfe S. Molitor
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Awards & honors
- American Book Award
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