Douglas Field

My research interests include: James Baldwin, avant-garde little poetry magazines, the aesthetics of failure, the international underground, mid-twentieth century African American literature and culture, jazz, and the Beat Generation.

I have mostly written about twentieth century US literature and culture, including publications on American cold war culture, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, JFK, Harold Norse, Jack Kerouac, Zora Neale Hurston, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, D.W. Griffith and jazz and Pentecostalism. I have also published on film noir, the Mimeograph Revolution, William Blake and the British polymath Jeff Nuttall.

I am currently writing chapters on Patti Smith, William S. Burroughs and ruth weiss. I am also co-editing a volume of essays on James Baldwin and Britain for Manchester University Press.

My work has appeared in journals including English Literary History, Genre, Textual Practice, African American Review, Literature and Theology, PN Review and Callaloo, in addition to a number of edited volumes including four Cambridge Companions.