Jason Vredenburg (jvredenb)

Jason Vredenburg

Teaching Associate Professor

School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Morton 328
(201) 216-3332
(201) 216-8245

Education

  • PhD (2013) University of Illinois (English (American Literature; Graduate Emphasis in Film))
  • MA (2006) University of Illinois (English)
  • BA (2005) University of Oklahoma (English)

Research

20th-century American Literature, 19th-century American literature, cinema studies, television studies, automobility and automobile culture, infrastructure studies

General Information

My current project, which evolved from my dissertation, examines the automobile not as a technology of transportation but as a technology of communication. I demonstrate that even as advances in the communication capabilities of the automobile expanded the power of the surveillance state, artists at various stages in this development harnessed the communicative power of the automobile to articulate creative and political responses to that expansion. I analyze the roles that the automobile plays in the content and production of a variety of literary and filmic texts, including works by Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, Raymond Chandler, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, Edward Abbey, and Don Delillo.

Institutional Service

  • AOAC Member
  • Hiring Committee -- Two Teaching Assistant Professors for HASS Foundations Member
  • HASS Lit Salon Chair
  • Hiring Committee -- Sociology Lecturer Lecturer Member
  • AOAC Promotions Member
  • AOAC Member
  • AOAC Promotions Member
  • CAL Lit Salon Chair
  • 2022 CAL Writing Contest Member
  • CAL Expanded Promotion & Tenure Committee Member
  • AOAC Promotions Member
  • AOAC Member
  • CAL Lit Salon Chair
  • 2022 CAL Writing Contest Member
  • Hiring Committee -- Visual Arts Faculty Member
  • Hiring Committee -- Quantitative Social Sciences Member
  • CAL Lit Salon Chair
  • Dean of CAL Review Committee Member
  • CAL 103 Reader Revision Member
  • CAL 103 Reader Revision Member
  • CAL Lit Salon Member
  • CAL Writing Contest Member
  • STS Hiring Committee Member
  • First-Year Reading Program Member
  • CAL 103 Reader Member
  • CAL Lit Salon Chair
  • CAL Writing Contest Member

Professional Service

  • Studies in American Naturalism Journal Reader

Honors and Awards

2011-2012 University of Illinois, Graduate College Fellowship

2005-2006 University of Illinois, Departmental Fellowship (English Department)

University of Illinois Teachers Rated Excellent (multiple semesters and courses)

Professional Societies

  • American Comparative Literature Association Member
  • NCTE – National Council of Teachers of English Member
  • MLA – Modern Language Association Member

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Vredenburg, J. (2016). The Californian Problem: Upton Sinclair's Oil! and the Mexican Revolution. American Literary Realism (3 ed., vol. 48, pp. 251-269).
  2. Vredenburg, J. (2016). “Solitary Bartlebies”: Kerouac’s On the Road and the Ideology of the Superhighway . Twentieth-Century Literature (2 ed., vol. 62, pp. 170-196).
  3. Vredenburg, J. (2013). What Happens in Vegas: Hunter S. Thompson's Political Philosophy. Journal of American Studies (1 ed., vol. 47, pp. 149-170). Cambridge University Press.
  4. , D.; Vredenburg, J. (2008). Forging a Pedagogical Community. Pedagogy (1 ed., pp. 179-193).

Literary Journal

  1. Vredenburg, J.. Past Tense. The Forge Literary Magazine (July 1, 2019 ed.). California: Forge Literary Press.
    https://forgelitmag.com/2019/07/01/past-tense/.