David Pike Professor and Department Chair, Literature Department of Literature

Degrees: PhD, Comparative Literature, Columbia University
MA, French & Romance Philology, Columbia University
BA, Film, Literature & Critical Theory, Swarthmore College
Languages Spoken: French, Spanish, German, Italian (reading), Latin (reading)
Favorite Spot on Campus: My office and the tree and campus quad outside the window
Book Currently Reading: Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown; Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King; Raúl Homero Villa, Barrio-Logos; Perhat Tursun, The Backstreets
Bio: Professor Pike is teaches in the Department of Literature. His most recent book is Cold War Space and Culture in the 1960s and 1980s: The Bunkered Decades (Oxford UP, 2021). He is the author of Canadian Cinema since the 1980s: At the Heart of the World (U of Toronto P, 2012); Metropolis on the Styx: The Underworlds of Modern Urban Culture, 1800–2001 (Cornell UP, 2007); Subterranean Cities: The World beneath Paris and London 1800–1945 (Cornell UP), shortlisted for the 2006 Modernist Studies Association book prize; Passage through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds (Cornell UP), recipient of the 1997 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities from the Council of Graduate Schools and a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1997; and articles on medieval literature, modernism, film, neo-Victorianism, subterranea, urban fantasy, global urban culture, slum imaginaries, and Paris and London. He is co-author of Literature: A World of Writing ; co-general editor of the Longman Anthology of World Literature; and co-author, with Malini Ranganathan (SIS, AU) and Sapana Doshi (UC-Merced) of “Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics in the Late Capitalist City,” forthcoming from Cornell UP.

In addition to urban culture and the underground, he teaches courses on European and Canadian cinema, film noir, the western, modernism, Dante, Roman literature, and the novel. From 1993 to 1995, Professor Pike was Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University. Among his awards and fellowships are NEH Fellowships for College Teachers in 1999 and 2021, an ACLS Fellowship for Junior Scholars, an ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship for "Corruption Plots," and the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Other Professional Contributions. Current projects include "Slum Lore," a cultural history of modern urban poverty.

For a not-so-recent-now profile, visit David Pike's Underworld.

For articles, book chapters, reviews, and talks (for individual research only), visit Publications Archive.

See Also: Professor Pike's office hours sign up sheet; Professor Pike's profile and articles at Academia.edu; Cold War Space and Culture in the 1960s and 1980s: The Bunkered Decades; Professor Pike's author page at Bright Lights Film Journal; 2 talks at the Humanities Center_CSU
For the Media: To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.; AU Experts

Faculty Profile: David Pike

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David Pike Professor and Department Chair, Literature Department of Literature

Teaching

Spring 2022

Fall 2022