MA, University of Nebraska
BA, Pacific Lutheran University
Extension:
43398
Email: slethaug@uwaterloo.ca
Biography
I have taught at universities in Canada, China, Denmark, Hong Kong, and the United States, and draw from these experiences in my teaching and writing. At the University of Waterloo (head of the English Department and Associate Dean of Graduate Programs in Arts) until 1995, I then taught at the University of Hong Kong (Director of American Studies and Lingnan Professor) from 1995 to 2008. From 2004 to 2008, I was awarded a four-year grant from the Lingnan Foundation (Yale and New York City) to bring team teaching, interdisciplinary methodology, American studies, and English-language instruction to the classroom at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and to bridge American Studies activities and research between the University of Hong Kong and Sun Yat-sen University, and I have written widely on the faculty and student learning transformation that occurred as a result of this project. I remain an Honorary Professor in Arts at the University of Hong Kong.
From 2008 until 2012, I taught American culture and communication subjects at the University of Southern Denmark, where I had earlier been awarded a Senior Fulbright Professorship. My courses there included: the History and Culture of New York City; the Road in American Culture; Contemporary American literature; Asian American Culture; International Teaching and Learning; Intercultural Communications; Media and Communications; Identity, Culture, and Learning; Human Resource Management (HRM), Organizations and Communications; and Communications and Globalization. My current teaching at Waterloo focuses on American culture, rhetoric, and issues of internationalization.
Selected publications
Books
Co-edited with Jane Vinther. International Teaching and Learning at Universities: Achieving Equilibrium with Local Culture and Pedagogy. New York: Plagrave Macmillan, 2015.
Adaptation Theory and Criticism: Postmodern Literature and Cinema in the USA. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
Co-edited with Stacilee Ford. Hit the Road, Jack: the History and Culture of the Road in America. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2012.
Co-edited with Janette Ryan, International Education and the Chinese Learner. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 2010.
Teaching Abroad: The Cross-Cultural Classroom and International Education. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 2007, and Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Beautiful Chaos: Chaos Theory and Metachaotics in Recent American Fiction. Albany: State University Press of New York, 2000.
Co-edited with Michael Larsen. Doubles and Doubling in the Contemporary Arts. Special double issue of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 1. 6.2-3 (1994).
The Play of the Double in Postmodern American Fiction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
With Stanley Fogel. Understanding John Barth. Columbus: University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
Articles and chapters
"Mapping the Trope: A Historical and Cultural Journey" and "Postmodern Masculinities in Recent Buddy and Solo Road Films." In Hit the Road, Jack: the History and Culture of the Road. Eds. Gordon E. Slethaug and Stacilee Ford. Montreal: McGill-Queens UP, 2012.
"Cross-Cultural Team-Teaching in China: A Retrospective View." In Understanding China's Education Reform: Creating Cross Cultural Knowledge, Pedagogies and Dialogue. Ed. Janette Ryan. London: Routledge, 2010.
"Something Happened While Nobody was Looking: The Growth of International Education and the Chinese Learner." In International Education and the Chinese Learner. Eds. Janette Ryan and Gordon Slethaug. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 2010. 15-36.
"Spike Lee, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X: The Politics of Domination and Difference." In I sing the Body Politic: History as Prophecy in Contemporary American Literature. Ed. Peter Swirski. Montreal: McGill-Queens U Press, 2009. 113-148.
"Class, Ethnicity, Race, and Economic Opportunity: the Idea of Order in Scorsese's Gangs of New York and Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing." Journal of American Studies (Korea) 40.1 (2008): 149-183.