{"id":267,"date":"2009-06-29T14:51:21","date_gmt":"2009-06-29T18:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?page_id=267"},"modified":"2025-09-18T15:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T19:27:13","slug":"nudelman-franny","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/people\/nudelman-franny\/","title":{"rendered":"Franny Nudelman"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n                    \n             \n                \n            <\/h1>\n\n    \n    <\/header>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Research Interests<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>United States Culture, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>War and Peace Studies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Documentary Studies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>African American Culture<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cultural Activism<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Research and Writing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My research, writing, and teaching have focused on nineteenth- and twentieth century U.S. culture, with an emphasis on cultural responses to the problem of war. Before arriving at Carleton in 2006, I worked as an assistant professor in Yale University\u2019s departments of English and American Studies (1992-97), and as an assistant and associate professor in the University of Virginia\u2019s department of English and program in American Studies (1997-2006). While in Virginia, I wrote my first book,&nbsp;<em>John Brown\u2019s Body: Slavery, Violence, and the Culture of War&nbsp;<\/em>(University of North Carolina Press, 2004), which examines representations of dead soldiers during the U.S. Civil War in light of a history of racial violence inflicted on free and enslaved African Americans during the antebellum period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since arriving at Carleton in 2006, my work has focused on U.S. culture after 1945 with an emphasis on radical documentary and war resistance in the context of American military expansion. With Joseph Entin and Sara Blair, I have edited a volume of essays entitled&nbsp;<em>Remaking Reality: U.S. Documentary Culture After 1945 (<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncpress.org\/book\/9781469638690\/remaking-reality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/www.uncpress.org\/book\/9781469638690\/remaking-reality\/<\/a>).&nbsp; Examining a wide range of forms and media, including sound recording, narrative journalism, drawing, photography, film, and video, <em>Remaking Reality<\/em> explores the flourishing of documentary activism in the contemporary period, and argues that after 1945 documentarians reconceived \u201creality\u201d as the site of political conflict, and documentation as instrumental to anti-institutional struggles for justice and survival. I recently published a book on sleep and U.S. militarism,&nbsp;<em>Fighting Sleep: The War for the Mind and the US Military <\/em>(Verso Books, 2019), that considers experiments in sleep, conducted between 1945 and the present, that have shaped, and reshaped, our understanding of war and its effects on the mind. <em>Fighting Sleep<\/em>&nbsp;examines the work of military psychiatrists who, in the immediate aftermath of WWII, used drug-induced sleep to heal traumatized veterans and to pioneer the techniques of brainwashing, and the activism of the&nbsp;<em>Vietnam Veterans Against the War<\/em>, who politicized sleep states in the service of war resistance, and turned sleep into a form of direct action.&nbsp;Recent published essays on the subject of war and documentary include \u201c\u2018Marked for Demolition\u2019: Mary McCarthy\u2019s Vietnam Journalism,\u201d <em>American Literature<\/em>&nbsp;(June 2013), \u201cAgainst Photography: Susan Sontag\u2019s Vietnam,\u201d <em>Photography and Culture<\/em>&nbsp;(Winter 2014), \u201cNew Soldiers and Empty Boys: Imaging Traumatic Memory,\u201d <em>Visual Studies<\/em> 30 (June 2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Honors and Awards<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carleton University Development Grant, 2017-18<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Collaborator, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, \u201cFeeling Life: Biopolitics, Literature, and Sentimentality,\u201d Principal Investigators: Stuart Murray (Carleton) and Julie Murray (Carleton), 2016\u20132018<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SSHRC Standard Research Grant, Anti<em>-War Avant-Garde: Radical Documentary in the United States, 1945-1974<\/em>, 2009-2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SSHRC Institutional Grant, 2008-2009, 2007-2008<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>External Faculty Fellowship, Center for the Humanities, Oregon State University, 2002-2003<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sesquicentennial Associateship, University of Virginia, January-December 2001<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Morse Junior Faculty Fellowship, Yale University, 1995-96<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Fighting Sleep: The War for the Mind and the US Military (Verso Books, 2019)<br>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/3081-fighting-sleep\">https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/3081-fighting-sleep<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Remaking Reality: U.S. Documentary After 1945, co-edited with Sara Blair and Joseph Entin (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)<br>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/uncpress.org\/book\/9781469638690\/remaking-reality\/\">https:\/\/uncpress.org\/book\/9781469638690\/remaking-reality\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>John Brown\u2019s Body: Slavery, Violence, and the Culture of War<\/em>&nbsp;(Cultural Studies of the United States Series, University of North Carolina Press, 2004)<br>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncpress.org\/book\/9780807855577\/john-browns-body\/\">https:\/\/www.uncpress.org\/book\/9780807855577\/john-browns-body\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Articles and Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Document&#8221; (an essay on British photojournalist Tim Hetherington) in <em>A Concise Companion to Visual Culture<\/em>, eds. Aubrey Anable, Joan Saab, Catherine Zuromskis (Wiley Blackwell, 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDeath in Life: Documenting Survival After Hiroshima,\u201d in <em>Remaking Reality: U.S. Documentary Culture After 1945<\/em> (University of North Carolina Press, April 2018)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cReporting Nuclear Dread: The Stranger at Didion\u2019s Door,\u201d <em>a\/b: Auto\/biography Studies 32<\/em> (Autumn 2016): 591-96<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNew Soldiers and Empty Boys: Imaging Traumatic Memory,\u201d <em>Visual Studies<\/em> 30 (June 2015): 210-221<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTake Me to the River,\u201d Review Essay on Katherine Boo\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Behind the Beautiful Forevers<\/em>&nbsp;and Rana Dasgupta\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Capital<\/em>, <em>Contemporary Literature<\/em>&nbsp;(Spring 2015): 181-190<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAgainst Photography:&nbsp;Susan Sontag\u2019s Vietnam,\u201d&nbsp;<em>Photography and Culture<\/em>&nbsp;7.1 (2014): 7:20<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201c<\/em>\u2018Marked for Demolition\u2019: Mary McCarthy\u2019s Vietnam Journalism,\u201d&nbsp;<em>American Literature 85.2 (2013): 363-87<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTrip to Hanoi: Anti-War Travel and International Consciousness,\u201d in <em>New World Coming: The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness<\/em>, eds. Karen Dubinsky, Catherine Krull, Susan Lord, Sean Mills, Scott Rutherford (Between the Lines, 2009): 237-246<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Review of Sharon Cameron\u2019s <em>Impersonality<\/em> and Branka Arsic\u2019s <em>Passive Constitutions<\/em>, <em>American Literature<\/em> (September 2009)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c\u2018The Blood of Millions\u2019: John Brown\u2019s Body, Public Violence, and Political Community,\u201d&nbsp;<em>American Literary History<\/em>&nbsp;(Winter 2001). Reprinted in&nbsp;<em>Afterlife of John Brown<\/em>, eds. Eldrid Herrington and Andrew Taylor (Palgrave Press, 2005)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c\u2018Ghosts Might Enter Here\u2019: Toward a Reader\u2019s History,\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Scribbling Women: Engendering and Empowering the Hawthorne Tradition<\/em>, eds. Melinda Ponder and John Idol (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Review of Caroline Levander\u2019s <em>Voices of the Nation: Women and Public Speech in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture<\/em>, <em>American Literature<\/em> (September 1999)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c\u2018Emblem and Product of Sin\u2019: The Poisoned Child in <em>The Scarlet Letter<\/em> and Domestic Advice Literature,\u201d&nbsp;<em>The Yale Journal of Criticism<\/em>&nbsp;10 (Spring 1997)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBeyond the Talking Cure: Listening to Female Testimony on The Oprah Winfrey Show,\u201d in&nbsp;<em>Inventing the Psychological: Toward a History of Emotional Life in America<\/em>, eds. Joel Pfister and Nancy Schnog (Yale University Press, 1997): 297-315<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHarriet Jacobs and the Sentimental Politics of Female Suffering,\u201d&nbsp;<em>English Literary History<\/em>&nbsp;59 (1992)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Multimedia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Guest Blog, \u201cTrip to Hanoi,\u201d<em>&nbsp;Cold War Camera<\/em>, July 2013<br>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/inthedarkroom.org\/coldwarcamera\/trip-to-hanoi)\">http:\/\/inthedarkroom.org\/coldwarcamera\/trip-to-hanoi)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Developed and taught online seminar for high school teachers on the roots of the 1960\u2019s counterculture, sponsored by the National Center for the Humanities<br>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/americainclass.org\/seminars\/flvs\/the-roots-of-the-1960s-counter-culture\/\">http:\/\/americainclass.org\/seminars\/flvs\/the-roots-of-the-1960s-counter-culture\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Developed and taught online seminar for high school teachers on Walt Whitman\u2019s Civil War poetry, sponsored by the National Center for the Humanities<br>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/nationalhumanitiescenter.org\/ows\/seminars\/civilwarrecon\/whitman\/\">http:\/\/nationalhumanitiescenter.org\/ows\/seminars\/civilwarrecon\/whitman\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Invited Lectures and Presentations (selected)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSleeping Soldiers: Experiments in Militarism and Resistance,\u201d Keynote Address, delivered at <em>Militarism, Security, and the Use of Force in U.S. History<\/em>, Annual Conference of Historians, German American Studies Association, February 21-23, 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cVeterans\u2019 Nightmares: Trauma, Activism, and \u2018The New Soldier,\u2019\u201d Miami University, Department of English, November 2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMarching On: Burial, Memory, Progress,\u201d Keynote Address, John Brown Day, John Brown State Historic Site, Lake Placid, New York, May 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cJohn Brown, Martin Luther King, and the Art of \u2018Creative Suffering,\u2019\u201d <em>John Brown, Abolition, and the Legacies of Revolutionary Violence: A Conference Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Harpers Ferry Raid<\/em>, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University, October 2009<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMaking it New: Consumption and Consciousness on the Trip to Hanoi,\u201d Oklahoma State University, American Studies Lecture Series, April 17, 2008<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cRadical Scavengers and Winter Soldiers: Documenting the War in Vietnam,\u201d Institute for Historical Studies, University of Michigan, February 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c\u2018This Guilty Land\u2019: Black Soldiers, Military Discipline, and the Wartime State,\u201d Interdisciplinary Civil War Symposium, Lawrence University, April 2005<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Getting to Gettysburg: On Teaching Civil War History,&#8221; Gibbs Museum, Charleston, South Carolina, April 1995<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recent Presentations (selected)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Reframing Postmortem Photography: Tim Hetherington&#8217;s <em>Sleeping Soldiers,<\/em>&#8221; Reframing Family Photography Conference, University of Toronto, September 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFlying Blind: Repurposing Aerial Vision in Richard Mosse\u2019s \u2018Enclave,\u2019\u201d American Studies Association, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roundtable Participant, \u201cOn Joan Didion: Essayist, Journalist, Memoirist, Novelist,\u201d Modern Language Association Convention, January 2016<u> <\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSleeping Soldiers: Tim Hetherington RIP,\u201d presented at the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, September 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Organizer and Presenter, \u201cMilitarism and the Environment: Ecology, Psychology, Technology,\u201d European Association for American Studies, The Hague, April 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cActivism\u2019s Aftermath: Susan Sontag\u2019s <em>On Photography<\/em>,\u201d <em>Capture 2012: Photography, Nature, Human Rights<\/em>, Yale University, October 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWalking Again,\u201d American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, April 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWinter Soldiers: Trauma and Activism from Vietnam to Iraq,\u201d American Studies Association, November 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Organizer and Presenter, Roundtable on Documentary Work in the US, 1945-1989, American Studies Association, October 2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSleeping In: Rest and Resistance at Dewey Canyon III,\u201d <em>Post-45 Collective<\/em>, University of Missouri, November 2009<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recent Ph.D. Supervisions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew Connolly, \u201cI Used to Speak in Tongues: Spirituality and Pentecostal Deconversion Narratives\u201d (April 2015)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert Mousseau, \u201cTherapeutic Reading: Self-Reflection and Social Awareness in Contemporary American Literature\u201d (September 2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert Hutton, \u201cComics and Literature: A Love Story\u201d (Co-supervised with Brian Johnson, September 2017)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9452,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Franny","cu_people_last_name":"Nudelman","cu_people_initials":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[22],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-267","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-professors"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Professor","cu_people_degree":"B.A., Ph.D. (California at Berkeley)","cu_building":"","cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"franny_nudelman@carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27292,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/267\/revisions\/27292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}