Davis Schneiderman
Encyclopedia
Davis Schneiderman is an American
innovative writer and academic.
(1996), an M.A. (1998) and Ph.D. (2001) from Binghamton University
. Since 2001, he has been a professor of English at Lake Forest College
, receiving tenure in 2006.
At Lake Forest, Schneiderman is Chair of the American Studies
Program. He co-directs the Lake Forest Literary Festival, the On the Run lecture series, and was recently named Director of the Lake Forest College Press / &NOW Books. He edits The &NOW AWARDS: The Best Innovative Writing, a biennial anthology. He is a national board member of the &NOW organization, which holds a biennial conference dedicated to innovative art and writing, and also Director of the NEH-funded Virtual Burnham Initiative http://vbi.lakeforest.edu/, a project to create 3-D models of the 1909 Plan of Chicago.
. Schneiderman is a contributor—along with the likes of Andrew Hussey
, Barry Miles
, and DJ Spooky
—to the volume Naked Lunch@50: Anniversary Essays, edited by Oliver Harris and Ian McFayden, and he spoke at the volume's commemorative events in Paris during the summer of 2009.
Schneiderman’s creative work is marked by a number of literary stunts including the sandpaper cover of his 2006 work Multifesto, so that the book might damage those it is placed against. In 2008, Schneiderman made two videos for YouTube
for a "Deconstructing Books" project. In one, he cuts Stephen Colbert
’s book I am America (and So Can You) in half with a handsaw, and in the second, he boils several novels in order to make noodles with writers Raymond Federman
and Lidia Yuknavitch. Federman’s 1971 novel Double or Nothing is centered around a conceit of noodles. His Busted Books "YouTube" channel, released in summer 2010, extends this project by physically deconstructing books, including a first edition of Moby Dick, Umberto Eco
's The Name of the Rose and his novel Drain. At the 2009 Association of Writing Programs conference in Chicago, Schneiderman invited book-fair participants to use implements such as scissors, white-out, and markers to "deconstruct" his novels Abecedarium and DIS. Shortly after, at a reading at Chicago's Hull House, Schneiderman debuted a method of stroboscopic flicker poetry based upon the work of Brion Gysin
and Burroughs's Dreamachine
invention. While the visiting artist at the University of Central Arkansas in the spring of 2010, Schneiderman first threaded a 100-foot rope through the crowd, attached the rope to his belt, and let the audience pull him up the terraced levels of a large auditorium. He has continued to use this rope reading at various other locations.
, Blake Butler
, Mark Spitzer, Nick Mamatas
, Cris Mazza
, and Stacey Levine
, and others. His Google Earth-based collaboration with Les Figues editor Teresa Carmody and Alexandra Chasin debuted in Los Angeles in June 2010, with a print excerpt in the 2010 issue of Mandorla. He worked with Lily Hoang on a story in her forthcoming collection Unfinished; Hoang "finished" a series of works sent to her from other authors. William Walsh, at The Kenyon Review blog (KR Blog), curated a feature on Schneiderman's collaborations in September 2010. In 2010, he also became a contributor to the collaborative blog bigother.com and the arts and culture site The Nervous Breakdown. At The Nervous Breakdown, Schneiderman writes occasional essays on literary culture, and conducted a 2011 interview with John Waters
.
. The titles, such as "A Character" or "Another Character" are separated by blank pages that contain 20 randomly spaced pyrographic or burn illustrations by artist Susan White. Additionally, the work has a "soundtrack" of three remixed Bach tracks from DJ Spooky
. These tracks are available as part of a $7500 fine-art edition of the novel, which comes encased in a plaster. The plaster must be broken by the reader to access the blank novel. Jaded Ibis does full-spectrum publishing, and Blank is will be available in an e-book edition and a color edition, to supplement the black-and-white commercial edition.
Blank signals Schneiderman's move toward conceptual writing, which is also reflected in a number of his recent web publications called the "Un-Death of the Author" series. In these, Schneiderman publishes well-known literary works under his name, as per the prologue to The Canterbury Tails (in Middle English) that appeared in a 2010 edition of the website Publishing Genius
.
At the 2011 Association of Writers & Writing Programs
conference in Washington, D.C., Schneiderman wore a mime costume at the large conference bookfair as a way of promoting Blank, and gave an off-site reading in mime costume where he read selections from Glenn Beck
's novel, The Overton Window
, stating to the audience that they could buy that book, or a blank one.
Blank has caused some controversy as a work of art, since it seems to challenge the conventions of publishing. Several web discussions, again at HTMLgiant.com, focus on the tradition that Blank may draw from, including precursors such as John Cage
and contemporary conceptual writers Kenny Goldsmith and Vanessa Place.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
innovative writer and academic.
Biography
Schneiderman earned a B.A. from the Pennsylvania State UniversityPennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
(1996), an M.A. (1998) and Ph.D. (2001) from Binghamton University
Binghamton University
Binghamton University, also formally called State University of New York at Binghamton, , is a public research university in the State of New York. The University is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York system...
. Since 2001, he has been a professor of English at Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College, founded in 1857, is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. The college has 1,500 students representing 47 states and 78 countries....
, receiving tenure in 2006.
At Lake Forest, Schneiderman is Chair of the American Studies
American studies
American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It traditionally incorporates the study of history, literature, and critical theory, but also includes fields as diverse as law, art, the media, film, religious studies, urban...
Program. He co-directs the Lake Forest Literary Festival, the On the Run lecture series, and was recently named Director of the Lake Forest College Press / &NOW Books. He edits The &NOW AWARDS: The Best Innovative Writing, a biennial anthology. He is a national board member of the &NOW organization, which holds a biennial conference dedicated to innovative art and writing, and also Director of the NEH-funded Virtual Burnham Initiative http://vbi.lakeforest.edu/, a project to create 3-D models of the 1909 Plan of Chicago.
Writing
Schneiderman is a writer who has garnered attention for his sometimes aggressive prose style as well as for his literary criticism on innovative writing and writers, particularly his criticism on William S. BurroughsWilliam S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
. Schneiderman is a contributor—along with the likes of Andrew Hussey
Andrew Hussey
Andrew Hussey OBE is a cultural historian and biographer, born in Liverpool, England. He lectured in French at the University of Huddersfield in the mid to late 1990s. He was a Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and since 2006 he has been the Head of French and...
, Barry Miles
Barry Miles
Barry Miles is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subject of the 1960s London underground. He has written numerous books and his work has also regularly appeared in left-wing papers such as The Guardian...
, and DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
—to the volume Naked Lunch@50: Anniversary Essays, edited by Oliver Harris and Ian McFayden, and he spoke at the volume's commemorative events in Paris during the summer of 2009.
Schneiderman’s creative work is marked by a number of literary stunts including the sandpaper cover of his 2006 work Multifesto, so that the book might damage those it is placed against. In 2008, Schneiderman made two videos for YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
for a "Deconstructing Books" project. In one, he cuts Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
’s book I am America (and So Can You) in half with a handsaw, and in the second, he boils several novels in order to make noodles with writers Raymond Federman
Raymond Federman
Raymond Federman was a French–American novelist and academic, known also for poetry, essays, translations, and criticism. He held positions at the University at Buffalo from 1973 to 1999, when he was appointed Distinguished Emeritus Professor. Federman was a writer in the experimental style, one...
and Lidia Yuknavitch. Federman’s 1971 novel Double or Nothing is centered around a conceit of noodles. His Busted Books "YouTube" channel, released in summer 2010, extends this project by physically deconstructing books, including a first edition of Moby Dick, Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
's The Name of the Rose and his novel Drain. At the 2009 Association of Writing Programs conference in Chicago, Schneiderman invited book-fair participants to use implements such as scissors, white-out, and markers to "deconstruct" his novels Abecedarium and DIS. Shortly after, at a reading at Chicago's Hull House, Schneiderman debuted a method of stroboscopic flicker poetry based upon the work of Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
and Burroughs's Dreamachine
Dreamachine
The dreamachine is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs's "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, The Living Brain.-History:In the dreamachine's original form, a...
invention. While the visiting artist at the University of Central Arkansas in the spring of 2010, Schneiderman first threaded a 100-foot rope through the crowd, attached the rope to his belt, and let the audience pull him up the terraced levels of a large auditorium. He has continued to use this rope reading at various other locations.
Collaborations
Additionally, Schneiderman is known for his collaborative works, including the novel Abecedarium, written with Carlos Hernandez, and had recently produced a series of short works with a variety of experimental writers including Lance OlsenLance Olsen
- Biography :Lance Olsen received a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison , an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop , and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia...
, Blake Butler
Blake Butler
Blake Butler was a British actor best known for his regular role as Mr. Wainright during the first three series of Last of the Summer Wine between 1973 and 1976...
, Mark Spitzer, Nick Mamatas
Nick Mamatas
Nick Mamatas is an American horror, science fiction and fantasy author and editor for the Haikasoru line of translated Japanese science fiction novels for Viz Media...
, Cris Mazza
Cris Mazza
Cris Mazza is an American novelist, short story and non-fiction writer.-Biography:A native of Southern California, she earned her BA and MA at San Diego State University and her MFA in writing at Brooklyn College. She has published nine novels, four collections of short stories, and a collection...
, and Stacey Levine
Stacey Levine
Stacey Levine is an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she attended The University of Missouri's journalism school and the University of Washington...
, and others. His Google Earth-based collaboration with Les Figues editor Teresa Carmody and Alexandra Chasin debuted in Los Angeles in June 2010, with a print excerpt in the 2010 issue of Mandorla. He worked with Lily Hoang on a story in her forthcoming collection Unfinished; Hoang "finished" a series of works sent to her from other authors. William Walsh, at The Kenyon Review blog (KR Blog), curated a feature on Schneiderman's collaborations in September 2010. In 2010, he also became a contributor to the collaborative blog bigother.com and the arts and culture site The Nervous Breakdown. At The Nervous Breakdown, Schneiderman writes occasional essays on literary culture, and conducted a 2011 interview with John Waters
John Waters
-Entertainment:*John Waters , American film director, active 1926–29 and 1947*John Waters , American film director, writer, visual artist, actor and cult figure...
.
Drain
His novel Drain was published by TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press in June 2010, and centers the conflict between an apocalyptic cult and a planned-community corporation in an emptied-of-water Lake Michigan. Excerpts appeared in "TriQuarterly", "The Collagist," and "The Nervous Breakdown" and Schneiderman's book tour brought him to Live from "Prairie Lights" (Iowa City), the University at Buffalo, Cherry Bomb (Grand Rapids), Binghamton University, Printer's Row (Chicago), and the University of London Institute in Paris.Blank
His novel Blank was published by Jaded Ibis Press in March 2011. The novel consists of 20 chapter titles that Schneiderman has claimed in an HTMLgiant.com interview follows morphological structures in line with the work of Vladimir ProppVladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.- Biography :...
. The titles, such as "A Character" or "Another Character" are separated by blank pages that contain 20 randomly spaced pyrographic or burn illustrations by artist Susan White. Additionally, the work has a "soundtrack" of three remixed Bach tracks from DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
. These tracks are available as part of a $7500 fine-art edition of the novel, which comes encased in a plaster. The plaster must be broken by the reader to access the blank novel. Jaded Ibis does full-spectrum publishing, and Blank is will be available in an e-book edition and a color edition, to supplement the black-and-white commercial edition.
Blank signals Schneiderman's move toward conceptual writing, which is also reflected in a number of his recent web publications called the "Un-Death of the Author" series. In these, Schneiderman publishes well-known literary works under his name, as per the prologue to The Canterbury Tails (in Middle English) that appeared in a 2010 edition of the website Publishing Genius
Publishing Genius
Publishing Genius is an independent publisher located in Baltimore, Maryland. The press, run by Adam Robinson, has published novels, short stories and poetry since 2006, including work by Stephanie Barber, Rachel B. Glaser, Michael Kimball, Mairéad Byrne, Justin Sirois and more...
.
At the 2011 Association of Writers & Writing Programs
Association of Writers & Writing Programs
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is a literary organization whose mission is "to foster literary talent and achievement, to advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and to serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing."-Members:AWP...
conference in Washington, D.C., Schneiderman wore a mime costume at the large conference bookfair as a way of promoting Blank, and gave an off-site reading in mime costume where he read selections from Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
's novel, The Overton Window
The Overton Window
The Overton Window is a political thriller by political commentator Glenn Beck. The book, written with the assistance of contributing writers, was first released on June 15, 2010.-Plot:...
, stating to the audience that they could buy that book, or a blank one.
Blank has caused some controversy as a work of art, since it seems to challenge the conventions of publishing. Several web discussions, again at HTMLgiant.com, focus on the tradition that Blank may draw from, including precursors such as John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
and contemporary conceptual writers Kenny Goldsmith and Vanessa Place.
Novels
- Blank: a novel. (Jaded Ibis, 2011.)
- Drain. (TriQuarterly/Northwestern, 2010.)
- DIS, Or, in the Shadow of the Dome of Pleasure. (Buffalo, NY: BlazeVox Books, 2008.)
- Abecedarium. [w/ Carlos Hernandez] (Portland, OR: Chiasmus Press, 2007).
- Multifesto: A Henri d’Mescan Reader. (New York: Spuyten Duyvil Press. Limited-edition art book, 2006);
Edited Collections
- The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism's Parlor Game. Eds. Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, Davis Schneiderman, and Tom Denlinger. (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2009).
- Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization. Eds. Davis Schneiderman and Philip Walsh. (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
Audiocollage
- Memorials to Future Catastrophes (with Don Meyer and Tom Denlinger). (Kansas City, MO: Jaded Ibis Productions, 2008).
- "Zombies Alive" (with Don MeyerDon MeyerDon Meyer is a retired American college basketball coach who completed his career in 2010 as head coach of the men's team at Northern State University...
, Tin Pan, and Jennifer Arroyo. (New York, NY: Exquisite Corpse Festival, 2011).
E-Books
- The City of Omni+Baal, or, Nature is an Infinite Dodecahedron Whose Centre is Everywhere and Whose Circumference is Nowhere. (Buffalo, NY: BlazeVox Books, 2004)
External links
- Davis Schneiderman’s Official Website and blog.
- Busted Books, including the trailer for Blank: a novel.
- A conversation between Schneiderman and John Waters
- Blank interview at HTMLgiant.com
- On Collaboration, VI: Davis Schneiderman and the Riddle of Collaboration.
- Excerpt from Drain at The Collagist
- Excerpt from Drain at The Nervous Breakdown
- Interview (2009) with Davis Schneiderman at Salt Magazine.
- Interview (2008) with Davis Schneiderman at Rain Taxi: Review of Books.
- Interview (2008) with Davis Schneiderman and Carlos Hernandez about Abecedarium at Chiasmus Press podcast.
- Interview (2008) with Davis Schneiderman for the BLEED project.
- Virtual Burnham Initiative http://vbi.lakeforest.edu/.