Joseph Conrad, the psychology of extreme conditions as depicted in modern literature, the artist as critic in the 20th century
B.A. University of Toronto, Philosophy and Political Science
M.A. University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought
PhD University of Chicago Committee on Social Thought
Debra Romanick Baldwin is author of The Inwardness of Things: Joseph Conrad and Voice of Poetry. (University of Toronto Press, 2024) and editor of The Routledge Companion to Joseph Conrad (Routledge, 2024). In addition to her work on Conrad and his circle, she has also written on St. Augustine, Flannery O鈥機onnor, Melville, Primo Levi, and the Ukrainian poet and writer Lyubov Sirota. She is currently engaged in translating Sirota's Ukrainian novel, As Long As the Sky Still Shines Within Us, or, On Freedom, Dignity and Love (Kyiv-Mohyla University Press, 2024).
Joseph Conrad, his ethics, aesthetics, and psychology; his relation to and understanding of Russia,the psychology of extreme conditions as depicted in modern literature, including literature of the Shoah; the artist as critic in the twentieth century.
Books
. University of Toronto Press, 2024. 330 pp.
This book considers Conrad as a modern voice in an ancient and enduring quarrel between the poets and the philosophers. Beginning from the polemical poetics of his 1897 preface, this study focuses on Conrad鈥檚 distinctively poetic 鈥渋nward鈥� approach to truth 鈥� where inwardness is found in individual experience, in language, and in the world beyond the individual. The argument traces Conrad鈥檚 poetic voice from the rhetoric of his private letters, to the narrative techniques of his fiction, and finally to his explicit engagement with abstract approaches to truth. 鈥淧art One: Hidden Contingencies鈥� applies narrative and rhetorical analysis to his private correspondence, showing how he encouraged five temperamentally diverse friends and fellow writers 鈥� John Galsworthy, Warrington Dawson, R.B. Cunninghame Graham, Ted Sanderson, and Edward Noble 鈥� to engage the inwardness of their own experience. 鈥淧art Two: Crafting Inwardness鈥� utilizes both reader response approach and manuscript study to explore how Conrad crafted moments of narrative solidarity in his fictional narratives to guide readers to mimetic experience of the inwardness of another. 鈥淧art Three: Conrad and the Ancient Quarrel鈥� considers his explicit polemics against abstract approaches to truth-seeking, first by analyzing the playful dialectics of his only letters to a philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and then by moving to Conrad鈥檚 fictional depictions of abstractive characters, shown as often failing. This book, mindful of the colonial, late Victorian, Polish Romantic, and deeply cosmopolitan contexts in which Conrad wrote, nevertheless situates him in the broader human conversation that he himself invited.
, edited by Debra Romanick Baldwin, Routledge, 2024.
This volume brings together an international roster of 28 scholars from 12 countries to consider Conrad's works in relation to biography, narrative, politics, women鈥檚 studies, comparative literature, and other forms of art. The essays offer approaches as diverse as re-examining Conrad鈥檚 sea voyages using newly available digital materials, analyzing his archipelagic narrative techniques, applying Chinese philosophy to Lord Jim, interrogating gendered epistemology in the neglected story 鈥淭he Tale,鈥� considering Conrad alongside W.E.B. Du Bois, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, or Orhan Pamuk, or alongside sound, gesture, opera, graphic novels, or contemporary events. This collection invites future generations to read Conrad because the works themselves 鈥� their artistry, vision, and ideas 鈥� continue to challenge, perplex, and delight.
Selected Articles and Chapters
"Max Dorsinville and the Jazz of Influence," Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies, forthcoming.
鈥淐onrad and the Ancient Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry.鈥� The Routledge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Routledge, 2024, pp. 151-64.
鈥淚nwardness on the 鈥楴arcissus.鈥欌�� The Conradian, vol. 48, no. 2, 2023, pp. 91-103.
鈥淐osmic Perspective in a Human Art,鈥� The Conradian, vol. 46, no. 2, 2021, pp. 47-55.
鈥淭eaching Heart of Darkness Now,鈥� Literary Imagination, vol. 23, no. 2, 2021, pp. 170-181.
鈥淢arlow, Socrates, and an Ancient Quarrel,鈥� The Conradian, vol. 38, no. 2, 2015, reprinted in Centennial Essays on Conrad鈥檚 Chance, edited by Allan Simmons and Susan Jones, Brill/Rodopi, 2016, pp. 53-65.
鈥淎 New Afterword鈥� to Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, Signet Classics, 2015, pp. 263-71.
鈥淭he Horror and the Human: The Politics of Dehumanization in Conrad鈥檚 Heart of Darkness and Primo Levi鈥檚 Se questo 猫 un uomo.鈥� Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies, vol. 37, no. 3, 2005, pp. 185-204.
鈥淐onrad and Gender.鈥� The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, edited by J.H. Stape Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 132-46.
鈥淐onrad First in the Classroom.鈥� 2013, ConradFirst
鈥溾�楾wo Languages鈥� of Engagement: The Rhetoric of Conrad鈥檚 Letters to R.B. Cunninghame Graham.鈥� The Conradian, vol. 37, no. 2, 2012, pp. 20-31.
鈥溾�楽imple Ideas鈥� and the Narrative of Solidarity in 鈥楶rince Roman.鈥欌�� The Conradian, vol. 35. no. 1, 2010, pp. 17-27.
鈥淭he Voice of Comedy in Conrad鈥檚 Typhoon and Primo Levi鈥檚 The Monkey鈥檚 Wrench,鈥� Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies, vol. 38, no.1, 2006, pp. 17-28.
鈥淎ugustinian Physicality and the Rhetoric of the Grotesque in the Art of Flannery O鈥機onnor.鈥� Augustine and Literature, edited by Robert Kennedy, Kim Paffenroth, and John Doody, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield-Lexington, 2006.
鈥淭he Horror and the Human: The Politics of Dehumanization in Conrad鈥檚 Heart of Darkness and Primo Levi鈥檚 Se questo 猫 un uomo.鈥� Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies, vol. 37. no. 3, 2005, pp. 185-204.
鈥淧olitics, Martyrdom and the Legend of St. Thekla in Conrad鈥檚 Under Western Eyes,鈥� Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies, vol. 32, no. 2, 2000, pp. 144-157.
鈥淐onrad鈥檚 Victory and The Shadow-Line. A Joseph Conrad Companion, edited by Ted Billy and Leonard Orr, Greenwood, 1999, pp. 231-251.
鈥溾�楾he Worker in Prose鈥�: Conrad鈥檚 Anti-theoretical Theory of Art.鈥� Conrad鈥檚 Century:The Past and Future Splendour, edited by Laura Davis-Clapper, Columbia University Press, 1999, pp. 189-202.