William Patrick Day ’71

  • Professor of English and Cinema Studies

Areas of Study

Education

  • BA, Oberlin College, 1971
  • MA, University of Chicago, 1972
  • PhD, University of Chicago, 1976

Biography

I teach courses in the English department and the Cinema Studies and Comparative Literature Programs. I’ve written about horror/gothic literature and vampires, and I have a long-standing interest in popular culture. In addition to horror stories, I’m interested in science fiction, fantasy, and detective stories. On the other hand, I’m quite happy working with what is called high art—the work of writers such as Henry James, William Faulkner, and Wallace Stevens.  
 
I’m currently working on two projects: a book on history and film called Imagining History and an essay on wonder in the 1933 and 2005 versions of “King Kong” called “The Ape in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In addition to the courses I regularly teach, I am developing two courses I intend to teach in the near future. One, on television, will focus on the relation of the way narrative is used and transformed by the medium of television, and the other will focus on the effect and subject of “strangeness” in cinema.
 
What brings all of this together for me is my interest in the relations among pleasure, imagination, and value.

In the Circles of Fear and Desire: A Study of Gothic Fantasy
Vampire Legends in Contemporary American Culture: What Becomes a Legend Most

Spring 2023

American Cinema 1966-1990 — CINE 173
Strange Cinema — CINE 360
Strange Cinema — ENGL 361

Fall 2023

Introduction to the Advanced Study of Cinema — CINE 290
Introduction to the Advanced Study of Cinema — ENGL 291
Contemporary Literary Theory: Post-Modernity and Imagination — CINE 372
Contemporary Literary Theory: Post-Modernity and Imagination — CMPL 372
Contemporary Theory, Art, and Technology — ENGL 372

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