‘Not Paradise But Plain Reality’: George Stanley and the Concept of Poetry

Photo by John Dean

Christopher Nealon teaches American literature, aesthetic theory, and the intellectual histories that bear on the history of poetry. He also regularly teaches courses that explore how the humanities have conceived of capitalism. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1997, and taught at UC Berkeley from 1996 to 2008.

He has written three books of criticism: Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion before Stonewall (2001), The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in the American Century (2011), and Infinity for Marxists: Essays on Poetry and Capital (2023). He is the co-editor, with Colleen Lye, of the collection After Marx: Literature, Theory and Value in the 21st Century (2022). He is also the author of five books of poetry, including The Shore, which was a finalist for the 2020 National Critics’ Book Circle Award. His latest volume of poems is All About You (2024).

Sponsored by the Eberhard L. Faber 1915 Memorial Fund in the Council of the Humanities