BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE

PROFESSOR BOB NOWLAN
 
 

    I work as a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and have done so since the start of the fall 1997 semester.  My primary areas of interest as a teacher-scholar include critical theory; cinema and media studies/critical studies in film, video, and moving-image culture; critical culture studies; popular music cultures; gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-and-queer studies/critical studies in sexuality and gender; Irish and Scottish studies; mystery and detective fiction; and writing screenplays and other experimental performance pieces as well as speculative reflections.

    In my scholarly pursuits I work from a Humanist Marxist position.  I conceive of Marxism as a philosophy and politics of freedom.  Socialism, as I see it, represents the international revolutionary movement of self-emancipation of the exploited working class (the vast majority of the world's population), and Marxism represents the critical theoretical framework that can best explain the problems and limitations of global capitalism that not only make possible but also viable, necessary, and urgent this eventual, ultimate process of transformation.  At the same time, I support an independent, non-sectarian version of Marxism that rejects both ultra-leftism and right-opportunism.  

    I am a member of the Socialist Party U.S.A., an independent socialist party welcoming of involvement of Marxist and non-Marxist socialists, and famously associated with two of my childhood heroes, Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas.  I am a Democratic Socialist, rejecting authoritarian, statist, Stalinist and Maoist variants which I believe have falsely claimed to be 'socialist' and 'communist', and which in actual practice were  neither genuinely 'socialist' nor 'communist'.  I am a strong opponent of fascism and totalitarianism, in all forms and guises, including fascist and totalitarian currents at work in everyday life of contemporary capitalist societies and cultures.

    In addition, I am and have long been (for well over twenty years now) openly gay.  As I see it, our sexualities are complex modes of being and relating in society, and they effect the ways in which we engage in all other forms of social relations, exercising a significant impact on our outlook on life and our everyday engagement in the world.  I believe we all are in varying, shifting degrees both gay and straight. I am proud to associate my own understanding of gayness with a radical theorization and practice of gayness conceived and promoted by revolutionary gay liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s.   I am a staunch opponent of any and all forms of discrimination, harassment, prejudice, and abuse directed against glbt people, and against homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism even more broadly conceived.  I take a very positive, affirmative stance versus the beauty, value, and necessity of a substantially liberated human sexuality in general; I sharply oppose sex-negative positions, whether religious-based or otherwise.  And I also continue to work on scholarly projects in this area--from work on my PhD dissertation onward a central scholarly focus for me.

    I maintain passionate interests in film and in music. While an undergraduate, I was assistant station manager, music director, and program coordinator for my college radio station, WESU-FM, and I was also a punk/hardcore, new wave, and experimental new music disc-jockey.  I continue to enjoy all these kinds of music, plus many more varieties as well.  I currently am especially compelled by a great deal of recent and contemporary "alt pop" and "indie rock," including fusions of blues, folk, jazz, and country with rock 'roots' sources.  And I like a considerable range of 'avant-queer' and 'post-rock' music too.  In addition, I am, further, seriously interested in progressive forms of (especially “underground”) hip-hop (including queer hip-hop or 'homo hop') and folk, as well as diverse world musics, in particular those directly conceived as deliberate contributions to progressive social change.   I enjoy as well a considerable range of techno and electronica, from trance to trip-hop to leftfield and beyond.  I also enjoy traditional Irish and Scottish music, including in contemporary innovative forms, involving multiple fusions and hybrids.   And, over the course of many years now,  I have frequently gone clubbing, dancing at many gay and mixed gay-straight clubs, in many cities in the US and beyond. 

    Moving to teach courses in music as cultural studies starting in the spring of 2008 with 'Critical Studies in Contemporary Popular Music Cultures' and then continuing in the fall of 2008 with 'Music, Protest, and Resistance' and on into the fall of 2009 once again with 'Critical Studies in Contemporary Popular Music Cultures' I find challenging yet exciting.  Because, all in all, teaching is and long has been where I invest the greatest energy, effort, care, and concern of all the academic, intellectual, and professional work that I do--and, yes, this has been the case ever since I first started teaching at the university level in the spring of 1985.  Most of all, what I love best about my job, by far, is working with students as a teacher.

    I am currently highly active with Eau Claire's progressive, community radio station, WHYS-LP (96.3FM).  I dj a weekly music show on this station, Insurgence, focusing on progressive music of protest, struggle, resistance, rebellion, revolt, and transformation.  I love it; it is the most fun I have had on a consistent basis since I’ve came to Eau Claire in late June of 1997.  At WHYS I also serve on the station's Board of Directors as Coordinator/Facilitator, and have done so since September of 2006, when I played a pivotal role in creating this managerial structure for our station.  I dabble in my limited free time at playing some with a keyboard, a synthesizer/vocoder, a sampler/sequencer, a ukelele, a drum machine, a dual-CD player and mixer, and with digital electronic music composition programming; some day I really would like to get serious about making my own music.

    In the area of film, I am especially fond of film noir and other forms of crime film.  But I also maintain deep interests as well in gay and queer film, in contemporary British and Irish film, and in politically committed and engaged documentary, non-fiction, experimental, and avant-garde film.  I like films that have a strong, intelligent sense of story, and of character; I like films that deal with serious ideas in complex and sensitive ways; and I like films that are both innovative in technique and economical in expression.  At UWEC I served for many years as chair of the International Film Committee plus I founded The Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival in 2005 and have served as Executive Director ever since. 

    I also love reading diverse mystery and detective fiction, especially "hardboiled" or "noir" fiction (and in particular gay/queer, from Scotland, or, of late, from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland). 

    For many years in college and beyond I concentrated in Irish Studies.  I have traveled in Ireland six times as part of extended visits; I am, moreover, of 100% Irish descent.  All of my ancestors came over in the aftermath of the Great Irish Famine (or 'Black 47').  I am proud of my Irish heritage and have been involved in a whole host of Irish related interests and activities for most of my life.  In recent years, I have become fascinated in branching out, beyond this Irish focus, to explore emerging wide-ranging interests in Scottish history, culture, and politics as well.

    The last six years (2003-2008) I have traveled fourteen different times to Britain and spent a total of over thirty weeks in England, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man.  Edinburgh and London are my favorite cities in Britain, although I certainly loved traveling and spending time this past summer of 2009 in Manchester, Blackpool, and Glasgow.  I always greatly enjoy traveling about, and spending time in, large cities--especially, since I've moved to Wisconsin, Minneapolis in particular (although I am also fond of St. Paul and Milwaukee as well).  And in the summer of 2007 I spent one week traveling in Paris and one week traveling in Berlin, while I spent five weeks in the summer of 2008 traveling in Germany (four weeks) and Austria (one week): Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Berlin.   (I love Berlin--an enormously exciting, vital, dynamic, mesmerizing, and even terrifying city--socially, culturally, historically, and politically so rich and yet also so overwhelming, including so overwhelmingly amazing as horrifying.)   I've also been fortunate enough recently to travel on five separate trips in Hawaii--which I also greatly enjoyed.  

    I am ethnically Roman Catholic, although I left off active involvement in the Church ironically enough shortly after the time in which I was officially confirmed as a “soldier for Christ” (thirty years ago).  Right now, my own religious position might best be described as agnostic and post-theistic.   At the same time, spiritually, I also am interested in aspects of neo-paganism, especially Celtic-affiliated, and Bhuddism, especially queer-oriented.

    When I was younger, I used to run regularly, including in road races.  I don’t run regularly any more, although I still strive to keep in good physical shape.  I am a fan of many spectator sports, including football, basketball, and baseball--as well as soccer (in particular, European football).  I also am interested in hurling, Gaelic football, and Australian rules football.

    I live in Eau Claire and I have a dog, Bogart, a Chinese pug, born in August of 1996, as well a Siamese cat, Brendan, born in August of 2003.  My partner, Andy Swanson, also works at UWEC, as a lecturer in Mathematics.  Andy and I have been together since October 31, 1998, and we were married in June of 2000 at the Unitarian Universalist church in Eau Claire.  He is the love of my life--a fantastic person, with whom I am truly very fortunate to be together.

*****

    Some addtitonal points of interest about me:

    I was born in Belvidere, Illinois on May 6, 1961 (and, interestingly enough, given my present location, conceived in Madison, Wisconsin-the previous summer). I  lived the first year of my life in Marengo, Illinois before moving to South Bend, Indiana where I lived for the next seven years.  I then moved to Wallingford, Connecticut where I lived until I went off to college, and where I lived for short periods on other occasions since.   Besides living in Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut, and Wisconsin, I have lived in New York for nine years and in Arizona for two years.
 

    I  welcome getting to know and working closely with my students, outside as well as inside of class.  I aimed to be a teacher ever since I was in middle school (enjoying the rare opportunity to serve as teacher of my Advanced Placement English class for almost half of my senior year in high school), and working directly with students is the ultimately most satisfying work I do.   I am ready, eager, and willing to do all I can to help my students learn if they are able and willing to work with me as mutually respectful and conscientiously dedicated co-partners in this process.

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