Dr. Robert Murray Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs Professor of English St. Thomas Aquinas College 125 Route 340 Sparkill, New York 10976 Curriculum Vitae Office: Spellman 105 Phone: 398-4125; 398-4147 Email: [email protected] Fall 2022 Office Hours for Fall 2022: By Appointment Film 219: Movies from 1950-present Thu 5:30-8:15 Sullivan 110 Good readers read the words; great readers read the spaces. John Barth Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. James Baldwin St. Thomas Aquinas College is home to the Alpha Kappa Omicron chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honors Society. |
McKinley Trail Cabin, Cordova, Alaska
"Who can't sleep like a log in a solitary cabin in the woods, you wake up in the late morning so refreshed and realizing the universe namelessly: the universe is an Angel."
Jack Kerouac, Big Sur I have had the pleasure of working at St. Thomas Aquinas College since 1998. Before that, I taught at Virginia Military Institute, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Middlesex County College, and Raritan Valley Community College. Born and raised in the forgotten borough of NYC, Staten Island, I have loved reading from an early age, at one point working through about five Hardy Boys novels a month. My 8th grade English teacher Sister Madeline assigned us Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and lots of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and I was hooked. At Tottenville High School, I had two fantastic English teachers: Carl Larsen and Hugh Rainey; they introduced me to Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, and many, many more. In college and graduate school, I focused on American writers, including Hawthorne, Thoreau, Melville, Dickinson, Faulkner, Crane, Emerson -- and later others, such as Jim Harrison, Flannery O'Connor, Jack Kerouac, Nella Larsen, Jean Toomer, Wallace Stegner, and (my current favorite) Marilynne Robinson. Lately I've trying to read everything Graham Greene and Peter Matthiessen wrote. I'm increasingly interest in nature writing, reading John Muir, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, Bernd Heinrich, and Annie Dillard. I am also interested in works written by men and women of other cultures and times, especially the work of Dostoevsky, Gogol, Turgenev, Rilke, Jeelani Bano, and Anita Desai. Other than reading, I love fly-fishing, kayaking, and hiking in Western Maine; fishing the Kenai River and near Cordova, Alaska; watching The Simpsons, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, and Fargo; watching TCM and Criterion Channel; and playing guitar. I listen to many types of music, everything from Patty Griffin, The Dead, Tom Waits, and G. Love; 20th century music by John Tavener, John Adams, and Arvo Part; to Warren Zevon, Jay Farrar, Elvis Costello and (of course) Joni Mitchell, and (of course) Stevie Wonder, and (of course) Bob Dylan; to Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Dorham, and John Coltrane; to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Medieval Polyphony and, lately, lots and lots of Mahler. Finally, it is my pleasure to be able to support some of the amazing work being done in Rockland County by serving as Chair of the Board of Directors for the wonderful organization, United Way Rockland. |