English: Readings and Lectures: Russ Reising

After studying Asian languages and literature in college, Russ Reising earned his Ph.D. in American literature at Northwestern University. Russ has taught at the University of Oklahoma, Marquette, and is now Professor of American literature and culture at the University of Toledo. He has also taught at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland as a Fulbright Fellow in American Studies. Russ Reising teaches and publishes widely in American literature and culture and in popular culture, from the American Puritans up to the Disney Studios and the novels of Tom Robbins, with forays into literary criticism and theory, rock and roll, and Japanese literature along the way. His two books, The Unusable Past: Theory and the Study of American Literature (Routledge, 1986) and Loose Ends: Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text (Duke University Press, 1996) both situated American literary studies within historical and political contexts.

Russ has recently been working on Anglo-American psychedelic culture and American culture of the Cold War, with special emphasis on rock and roll and other popular musical forms. He recently completed collecting, editing, and writing "Every Sound There Is": The Beatles' "Revolver" and the Transformation of Rock and Roll, to be published this Spring by Ashgate Publishers, a British press specializing in music studies.

Russ lives in Toledo, Ohio with his wife, three children, and many pets.