Contact Information

• kboyle@unca.edu
• 250-3915
• 239 Karpen Hall

Office Hours

• Tuesday 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
• Wednesday 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
• Thursday 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
• Note: And by appointment

I joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina Asheville in 2011, and now serve as Chair of the Department of English and Affiliate in the Humanities Program. I feel honored and proud to teach at North Carolina's public liberal arts university. That UNC Asheville is a public institution appeals to my working-class background as a first-generation college student from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That it is a liberal arts university suits my generalist proclivities as an academic.

While I specialize in literary theory and criticism, film studies, and rhetoric, my scholarly interests include representations of labor and social class, the relevance of critical theory in the 21st century, and the ideological operations and utopian aspirations of cultural artifacts—specifically screen texts—produced within the political economic context of postmodern, neoliberal late capitalism.

In my classes, UNCA students can expect to learn about the various methodologies for interpreting literature and film; the similarities and differences between literary and cinematic texts; the virtuous and vicious legacies of modernity; critical inquiry and the moves that matter in academic writing; and the expectations, philosophies, and rigors of a liberal arts education.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Cincinnati, 2009
• M.A., University of Cincinnati, 2003
• B.A., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Robert E. Cook Honors College, 2001

Publications

Books

• Social Darwinism in American Capitalism (in progress)
• The Rhetoric of Humor: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016.
• The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: 21st Century Bust Culture. Co-Editor with Daniel Mrozowski. Lexington Books, 2013.

Edited Journal Issues

• “Repeating Jameson?” Editor. International Journal of Žižek Studies, Special Issue, Volume 13.1, 2019.

Book Chapters

• “‘The Missing Element Is the Human Element’”: Ontological Difference and the World-Ecological Crisis of the Capitalocene.” Eco Culture: Disaster, Narrative, Discourse, Eds. Robert Bell and Robert Ficociello. Lexington Books, 2018.
• “Historicism/Historicity.” The Žižek Dictionary. Ed. Rex Butler. Acumen, 2013.
• “The Imagination of Economic Disaster: Eco-Catastrophe Films of the Great Recession.” The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: 21st Century Bust Culture. Lexington Books, 2013.
• “Introduction: Creative Documentation of Creative Destruction.” Co-authored with Daniel Mrozowski. The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture, Edited by Kirk Boyle and Daniel Mrozowski, Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), 2013, pp. ix-xxvi.

Journal Articles

• "Screening Cosmos-politanism: The Anthropocenic Politics of Outer Space Media.” Co-Authored with Daniel Mrozowski. Science Fiction Film and Television, Volume 12.3, 2019, pp. 343-363.
• “Rereading Jameson: On Doing Versus Introducing Dialectical Criticism.” Science & Society: A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis, Volume 83.3, 2019, pp. 414-424.
• “Introduction: Repeating Jameson?: Rereading Žižek Via Jameson, and Vice Versa.” International Journal of Žižek Studies, Special Issue “Repeating Jameson?” Edited by Kirk Boyle, Volume 13.1, 2019, pp. 2-21.
• "The Truth is Outsourcing: Notes on the Post-Industrial Spaces of The X-Files." Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture. 3.2, September 15, 2017.
• "Three Ways of Looking at a Neoliberalist: Mobile Global Traffic in Cosmopolis and Nightcrawler." Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 34.6 2017, 535-559.
• “Ideology at the End of Times.” Postscript: The Journal of the Philological Association of the Carolinas. 27 Spring 2011-Winter 2012.
• “Children of Men and I Am Legend: The Disaster-Capitalism Complex Hits Hollywood.” Jump Cut. 51 Spring 2009.
• “The Four Fundamental Concepts of Slavoj Žižek’s Psychoanalytic Marxism.” International Journal of Žižek Studies. 2.1 February 2008.
• “Reading the Dialectical Ontology of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Against the Ontological Monism of Adaptation.” Film-Philosophy. 11.1 June 2007, 1-32.
• “Whose Apocalyptic Ruses?: Derrida, Psychoanalysis, and Biblical Criticism.” Journal of Philosophy and Scripture. 4.1 Fall 2006, 1-20.

Teaching

• HUM 324: The Modern World
• LANG 120: Foundations of Academic Writing
• LIT 240: Introduction to Literature
• LIT 324: American Literary Tradition
• LIT 330: Readings in Film: Theory, Adaptation, Genre
• LIT 335: Western Literature: Enlightenment to Modern
• LIT 440: Seminar in Literary Theory & Criticism
• LIT 488: Seminar in Major Author: Edith Wharton
• LIT 497: Senior Seminar I
• LIT 498: Senior Seminar II
• LSIC 379: The Culture of Calamity

Dream Courses

• LIT 374:0H1 Readings in Social Class and Culture
• LIT 484: Seminar in Major Literary Period: Postmodernism
• LIT 488: Seminar in Major Author: Bertolt Brecht
• LIT 328: African American Literature

Affiliations

• Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)
• Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)