{"id":16412,"date":"2023-06-09T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maryville.edu\/mpress\/?p=16412"},"modified":"2023-06-07T12:09:42","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T17:09:42","slug":"understanding-the-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maryville.edu\/mpress\/understanding-the-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Jesse Kavadlo, a world-renowned scholar of American novelist Don DeLillo, shares DeLillo\u2019s works with Maryville students and recently published a book about the author with the prestigious Cambridge University Press.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jesse Kavadlo, PhD, tells his literature students at Maryville that Don DeLillo may be the most famous writer they\u2019ve never heard of. With his second book about DeLillo coming out, Kavadlo is doing his part to correct that notion.<\/p>\n

Kavadlo, professor of English and humanities<\/a>, has taught at Maryville since 2004. He teaches all levels of American literature and is beloved for his popular culture courses about monsters, superheroes, conspiracies, and rock and roll, among other topics.<\/p>\n

But Kavadlo is also a longtime student of DeLillo. His PhD thesis at Fordham University was published as a book, titled Don DeLillo: Balance at the Edge of Belief<\/em>. Now, he has edited a second book, Don DeLillo In Context<\/em>, published by Cambridge University Press. Kavadlo said he hadn\u2019t planned to do a second DeLillo book, but he was drawn in anyway. \u201cAs he kept publishing and he kept writing,\u201d Kavadlo said, \u201cI found that I had more to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fascination began with Kavadlo\u2019s first experience with the DeLillo canon, the novel White Noise<\/em>, which won the National Book Award in 1985. It is about an academic year in a small American college town that is struck by a toxic environmental event. \u201cI felt like it was speaking to me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has a sense of humor, a sense of existential dread, along with a satire of higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all these years, Kavadlo said that book is still his favorite; he\u2019s read it about a dozen times and teaches it regularly \u2014 not always to rave reviews from his students. \u201cThe class is always a little bit mixed on it,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s an important one for them to read. But it\u2019s also a really good exercise for them to see how all these sentences work and how DeLillo really pulls it off. The voice is very powerful and well written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides experiencing DeLillo with his Maryville students, Kavadlo is recognized internationally for his knowledge of the author. He recently traveled to Spain to take part in the defense of a PhD thesis by a student there. The defense was hosted by the University of Alcal\u00e1, located outside of Madrid. Looking at DeLillo from a different point of view was a fascinating and instructive experience, Kavadlo said, and something that will benefit his future teachings of the author\u2019s work. \u201cThe way this student approached it was different from the way Americans do,\u201d he explained. \u201cShe focused on his Americanness, with an interesting outside perspective, about reading it in English then looking at Spanish translations, and about how some ways the translations are complicated because of how he is interested in language and ambiguity.\u201d<\/p>\n

As president of the Don DeLillo Society, Kavadlo has kept up with the author, who continues to publish novels but whose prose has become more concentrated. \u201cAs he\u2019s getting older, since the novel Underworld<\/em>, he\u2019s gotten very stripped down and more cryptic in his writing,\u201d Kavadlo said, \u201cand the humor has gotten ice cold. It\u2019s a little tricky. He\u2019s being more ascetic in his writing, and that takes more from the reader. I find myself reading him and giving him the benefit of the doubt over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that DeLillo is detached from modern American tastes. Kavadlo said he can find DeLillo influences in such disparate popular culture fare as Lost<\/em> and Mad Men<\/em>, as well as in a new film adaptation of White Noise<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Though the term \u201cpostmodern\u201d has been used many times to describe the DeLillo canon, the author himself distances himself from the label, saying he considers himself part of a long line of modernists, from Joyce through Faulkner and so on. Kavadlo has a broader view. \u201cSometimes it can be helpful to try to understand DeLillo in terms of a genre,\u201d he said, \u201ceven though with some of his earlier novels, he played around with them. But they\u2019re postmodern in that he was aware of those genres. He\u2019s quite different from some of the other writers who are in those categories.<\/p>\n

\u201cA word used a lot with DeLillo is \u2018prescient.\u2019 He was ahead of his time, but at same time, very historical-thinking and backwards-looking at the Cold War and the Kennedy assassination.\u201d Kavadlo feels DeLillo\u2019s readership is likely to grow, in terms of popularity and appreciation. \u201cI definitely think he\u2019s going to continue to be read in the far future,\u201d he said. \u201cThe worst case is that he\u2019s studied as a historical figure. I hope it\u2019s not just that. I hope people read him because he gives us a very interesting window into the way things were and continue to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of his own publication, Kavadlo, who also directs Maryville\u2019s Dr. Mary Ellen Finch Center for Teaching and Learning<\/a>, emphasized how significant it is for a member of the University\u2019s faculty to have a book published by the prestigious Cambridge University Press. \u201cPublishing a book like this with Cambridge is a big deal for me,\u201d he said. \u201cMaryville\u2019s faculty does significant research in their disciplines and fields. This is an important part of our faculty identity as well as our student-centered learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

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