Debra Romanick Baldwin, PhD

Joseph Conrad, the psychology of extreme conditions as depicted in modern literature, the artist as critic in the 20th century

B.A. University of Toronto, Philosophy and Political Science
M.A. University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought
PhD University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought

Literary Tradition I, II, IV
The Art of Joseph Conrad
Twentieth Century Literature
Literature of the Shoah
The Art of Saul Bellow
Tolstoy's War and Peace
The Romantic Tradition
Literary Study II: Prose Fiction

Joseph Conrad, his ethics, aesthetics, and psychology; his relation to and understanding of Russia,the psychology of extreme conditions as depicted in modern literature, including literature of the Shoah; the artist as critic in the twentieth century.

• "'Simple Ideas' and Narrative Solidarity in "Prince Roman." The Conradian 35.1 (2010) (forthcoming).
• "Flannery O'Connor," Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.)
• "The Voice of Comedy in Conrad's Typhoon and Primo Levi's The Monkey's Wrench, Conradiana 38.1 (2006): 17-28.
• "Augustinian Physicality and the Rhetoric of the Grotesque in the Art of Flannery O'Connor," in Augustine and Literature, ed. K. Paffenroth (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield-Lexington Books, 2005).
• "The Horror and the Human: The Politics of Dehumanization in
  Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Primo Levi's Se questo e un uomo," Conradiana 37:3 (2005).
• "Politics, Martyrdom and the Legend of St. Thekla in Conrad's Under Western Eyes" in Conradiana, 32:2 (Spring, 2000): 144-157.
• "Models of Teaching and Models of Learning in the Confessions" in Augustine and Liberal Education, Kevin Hughes and Kim Paffenroth, eds., (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000)15-24.
• "Conrad's Victory and The Shadow-Line" in A Joseph Conrad Companion, Ted Billy and Leonard Orr, eds., (Westport, CT: The Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999)231-251.
• "'The Worker in Prose': Conrad's Anti-theoretical Theory of Art" in Conrad's Century: The Past and Future Splendour, ed. Laura Davis-Clapper (New York: Columbia UP, 1999)189-202.
• "'Victorious Wretch?' The Puzzle of Haldin's Name in Under Western Eyes," Conradiana, 30:1 (1998): 44-52.

• "An Introduction to the Crisis of Modernity in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, ARETE: A College Preparatory Program for High-School Students, University of Dallas, July 22, 2008.
• "The Simple Ideas in Conrad's World" The Case of 'Prince Roman,'" 34th Annual International Conference of the Joseph Conrad Society (UK), Lincoln, UK, July 2, 2008.
• "The Voice of Comedy in Conrad's Typhoon and Primo Levi's The Monkey's Wrench," Modern Language Association's Annual Convention, Philadelphia, December 30, 2004.
• "Monsters and Meta-narratives: The Case of Frankenstein," Association for Core Texts and Courses 2004 Conference, Irving, April 16, 2004.
• "Ravelstein and the Art of Saul Bellow," Las Colinas Women's Association Literary Club, Las Colinas, November 3, 2003.
• "'The Soul of Things Russian': The Politics of a Crime in Conrad's Under Western Eyes," Las Colinas Women's Association Literary Club, December 2, 2002.
• "The Politics of Extreme Conditions in Heart of Darkness and Primo Levi's If This is a Man," "Conrad and Territoriality" International Conference of the Joseph Conrad Society of America, Vancouver, Canada, August, 2002.
• Plenary Lecture: "Harlequins, Skeletons and Red-Eyed Devils: The Horror and the Human in Conrad and Primo Levi," University of Chicago Basic Program Spring Weekend, East Troy, WI, April, 2001.
• "Savagery and the Human in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," the Africana Studies Workshop, Villanova University, April 12, 2000.
• "Conrad and Dostoevsky on Human Nature and Nationality," the University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania, April 5, 2000.

• Solicited review of Zdislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life (New York: Camden House, 2007) for Joseph Conrad Today 32:1 (forthcoming 2008).
• Solicited review of Conrad in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Approaches and Perspectives, ed. Carola Kaplan, Peter Lancelot Mallios, Andrea White (New York: Routledge, 2004), for Conradiana 37:3 (2006).
• Solicited review of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Casebook, ed. Gene M. Moore (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), for Joseph Conrad Today 30:1 (2005).
• Solicited review of Conrad and Poland, ed. Alex Kurczaba (Boulder- Lublin- New York: 1996) for Slavic and East European Journal, 43:1 (1999) 224-6.
• Solicited review of Kazimiera Ingdahl, A Gnostic Tragedy: A Study in Stanislawa Przybyszewska's Aesthetics and Works (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1997) for Slavic and East European Journal, 43:4 (2000): 702-4.