Conference Presentations

"Civil Wars: The Red Badge of Courage and For Whom the Bell Tolls." Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference (Paris, France). July 2018.

"The Rites of War and The Sun Also Rises.” Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference (Venice, Italy). June 2014.

“Odyssey to the 17th Parallel” (creative nonfiction). Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference (Venice, Italy). June 2014.

“Joris Ivens, Ernest Hemingway, and the Non-Nonfiction Film.” American Literature Association Symposium (New Orleans), Oct 2013.

“Revisiting the Spanish Civil War Dispatches.” Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference   (Lausanne, Switzerland), Jun 2010.

“The Night Cindy Sheehan Spent in Jail” and “Tiger, Tiger,” Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference (Kansas City), Jun 2008.           

“From Oak Park to Africa: Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes and Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden,” Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference (Andalusia, Spain), Jun 2006.                       

“Tarzan, Vietnam, and the Ambiguity of American Empire,” The Vietnam War in Literature and Film (Honolulu, HA), Nov 2005.

“Tragedy, Naturalism, Parody, and Suicide in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Biennial Ernest Hemingway Conference (Key West FL), Jun 2004.                       

“Tragedy, Naturalism, Parody, and Suicide in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls,” South Central Modern Language Association (Hot Springs AR), Nov 2003.                       

“Motive and Genre in the War Memoir: A Personal and Academic Account” (keynote speaker). War Memoir Symposium (Center for the Study of the Korean War, Independence MO), Feb 2002.                       

“No Genre’s Land: The Problem of Genre in War Narratives and Military Autobiography,” South Atlantic Modern Language Association (Atlanta GA), Nov 2000.                       

“Narration and Miscegenation in Absalom! Absalom!” 20th Century Literature  (University of Louisville KY), Feb 2000.                       

“Desert Farewell” (fiction), Hemingway and War (U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs CO), Oct 1999.    

“Religion and Violence in West’s The Day of the Locust and Shepard’s True West,” American Literature Association (Baltimore MD), May 1999.                       

“Staging Violence in West’s The Day of the Locust and Shepard’s True West,” Midwestern Conference on Film, Literature, & Language (Northern Illinois Univ., Delkalb IL), Mar 1999.                                      

Engagements & Interviews                            

[Hemingway and War]. One True Podcast. Ernest Hemingway Society. 30 Sep. 2019

"Once Upon a Time in Spain: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway’s Revolutionary Romance (Ketchum, Idaho). Sep 2019.

Introduction. An Evening with Tim O'Brien. Dominican University (Oak Park, IL). 19 July 2016.

“Jungle Gem.” Interview by Shea Stewart. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 8 July 2016.

"The Old Man and the Pulitzer; or, For Whom the Pulitzer Tolls?" Arkansas Humanities Council’s Arkansas and the Pulitzer Prize series (Arkansas State University). 23 June 2016.

Moderator, Spain in Our Hearts by Adam Hochschild, Arkansas Literary Festival. April 2016.

“Field Notes on The Things They Carried,” keynote lecture and other events. NEH “Big Read” program, Radford University (Virginia). 3-5 October 2015.

Documentary interview, Gone with the Ape: 100 Years of Tarzan (LA; Lowland Media). 28 Sept 2015.

Moderator, “The New 22” panel with Ben Fountain (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk) and David Abrams (Fobbit),  MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 22 Jun 2013.       

“U.S. Encounters with Vietnamese Literature” (Hue University of Education, Vietnam), May 2012.               

“Introduction to the Spanish Civil War” (Hue University of Education, Vietnam), May 2012.                 

Visiting Writer, Troy University, “Your War is My War Too”  (Montgomery, AL), Nov 2011.                 

Author, 8th Arkansas Literary Festival (Little Rock), 9 Apr 2011.           

Panelist, “Reading Tarzan," Robert & Lillian Drake Lectureship, with Guy Reynolds and Harry Stecopoulos, (Hendrix College), Spring 2010.     

Interview for “Tarzan! Musée du quai Branly, Paris.” Esther Bintliff. Financial Times (Paris). http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1ebcb608-658f-11de-8e34-00144feabdc0.html, 30 June 2009.

Author, 6th Arkansas Literary Festival (Little Rock), 18 Apr 2009.                 

Panelist, The Diane Rehm Show, National Public Radio, A Farewell to Arms book discussion, with James Meredith and Kayla Williams, 20 Aug 2008.                            

“Images of Women and War from Ernest Hemingway to Cindy Sheehan,” National Endowment of the Arts’ “Big Read” (Hemingway Museum & Oak Park Public Library), Nov 2007.                       

Panelist, “Creative Nonfiction,” 826 Valencia (San Francisco), Sep 2007.           

Visiting Faculty, 20th Annual Writers’ Workshop. With Larry Heinemann, Bruce Weigl, Lady Borton, et al. (William Joiner Center, U. Mass.-Boston), June 2007.                             

Panelist, “Telling the Story: War.”  With Tim O’Brien and Lloyd Little, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Morgan Writer-in-Residence week), 28 Feb 2007.                             

Author/Speaker, Third Thursday Talks: “Mostly Books,” Main Library, Arkansas Central Library System (Little Rock), 15 Feb 2007. 

“The Impossibility of an Anti-War Story,” 9th Annual Tom Peyton Memorial Arts Festival, Fayetteville United Methodist Church (LA), 16 Apr 2005.           

Visiting Writer: “War’s Return” public lecture, and class visits, “Local Effects of a Distant War” program, Roanoke College (VA), 8-9 Feb 2005.                       

“Talk of the Nation” interview by Neal Conan, National Public Radio (with Tim O’Brien, Yusef Komunyakaa), 11 Nov 2004.           

Book Discussion leader, A Farewell to Arms, George Ackerman Reading Retreat, Arkansas Chapter, American College of Physicians,  Apr 2004.          

Interviews during the Second Persian Gulf War (2003): “The Jason Jarvis Show” (WORC   Hartford, CT, and RadioAmerica, Washington DC, 8 Apr); “The Mike Siegel Show” (WLIE Long Island, 7 Apr); “The Agenda” by John McComb (CKNW Canada, national, 1 Apr); FOX News (national, 28 Mar); BBC (26 Mar); Channel 11 News by Anne Jansen (WHTV Little Rock AR, 24 Mar); “The Mark Steiner Show” (WYPR Baltimore MD, 18 Mar); “Talk of the Nation” by Neal Conan (NPR, 11 Mar);   “Wake Up Central Jersey” by Judith Leblein (WCTC New Brunswick NJ, Mar & Feb).                                                                                                            

“The Next Big Thing” interview by Dean Ulsher, NPR (Show #311, WNYC, New York), 9-10 Nov 2002.

“The Last Gulf War—and the Next?”, Social Issues for the 21st Century Series, Christ Church (Little Rock AR), 17 Sep 2002.

“Masculinity, the Military, and Me,” Men’s Lives Series, St. John’s College (St. Cloud MN), 11 Nov 2001.

North Carolina State University ROTC, Leadership Seminar (Raleigh NC), May 2001.           

Duke University ROTC, Leadership Seminar (Durham NC), Mar 2001.           

“Fresh Air” interview by Neal Conan, with Greg Downey, National Public Radio, 20 Feb 2001.