Our Faculty

Biography

Jeff Sartain teaches writing, literature, and film as an Associate Professor at the University of Houston-Victoria. He studies the culture of the digital age, posthumanism, contemporary authors, and literary minimalism. He is the editor of Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk (2009), co-editor with Ron Riekki of The Many Lives of the Evil Dead (2019), and the author of numerous pieces on contemporary American literature and film.

He has written for an international list of journals, magazines, and newspapers, including the Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Poets and Writers, South Africa’s Weekender, Playboy, and American Book Review. In addition to his scholarship, he has written marketing and professional copy for businesses and non-profits of all sizes for many years. He currently serves as the Managing Editor for American Book Review.

Publications

Longer Works

The Many Lives of the Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise. Editors Ron Riekki and Jeffrey A. Sartain. McFarland, 2019. ISBN: 1-4766-68710.

Volume Advisor, “Chuck Palahniuk.” Contemporary Literary Criticism 359 (2014): 253-341.

Focus Editor, “Minimalisms.” American Book Review 33.4 (2012).

Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk. Edited by Jeffrey A. Sartain. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. ISBN: 1-4438-03628.

Discourses of the Digital Age: Representations of Computer Technology in Popular Narratives. Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2010. Director: De Witt Douglas Kilgore (English). Committee: Dana Anderson (English), Robert Ivie (Cultural Studies), Ted Striphas (Cultural Studies). Defense 23 April 2010. Degree Awarded 30 Sept. 2010.

Shorter Works

Forthcoming late 2021. Updated and revised 2nd Edition of Sartain, Jeffrey A., Volume Advisor. “Chuck Palahniuk.” Contemporary Literary Criticism (2014) from Gale Publications.

Forthcoming September 2021. “Amy Hempel” and “Chuck Palahniuk.” The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction. Eds. Stephen Burn, Lesley Larkin, and Patrick O’Donnell. Wiley-Blackwell.

“‘Shoot First, Think Never’: Ash’s Satire of Neoliberal Individualism.” The Many Lives of the Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise. Eds. Ron Riekki and Jeffrey A. Sartain. McFarland, 2019: 131-143.

“Cyberculture.” Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory. Ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo. Bloomsbury, 2018, pp. 431-32.

“Geeksploitation: Gender and Genius in The Big Bang Theory.” Genius on Television: Essays on Small Screen Depictions of Big Minds. Ed. Ashley Carlson. McFarland, 2015. 96-112.

Sartain, Jeffrey A., Volume Advisor. “Chuck Palahniuk.” Contemporary Literary Criticism 359 (2014): 253-341.

“Days Gone Bye: Robert Kirkman's Re-envisioned Western, The Walking Dead.” Undead and the West II: They Just Keep Coming, Eds. Cynthia Miller and A. Bowden Van Riper. Scarecrow, 2013. 249-68.

“Battle Gaming: Social Media and Sports on the Margins.” Gender and Genre in the Sports Documentary: Critical Essays. Eds. Zachary Ingle and David M. Sutera. Scarecrow, 2013. 121-35.

“Electronic Pioneers and Silicon Gunslingers: Non-Fiction Narratives of the Computer Industry.” Crisscrossing Borders in Literature of the American West. Eds. Cheli Reutter and Reg Dyck. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 21-35.

Sartain, Jeffrey A. and Courtney Wennerstrom. “Invisible Carrots and Fainting Fans: Queer Humor and Abject Horror in ‘Guts.’” Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk. Ed. Jeffrey A. Sartain. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. 159-177.

“Phillip K. Dick,” “Gonzo Journalism,” “Dennis Hopper,” “Chuck Palahniuk,” “Medieval Re-enactment,” “Role-Playing Games,” “The X-Files.” American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Ed. Gina Misiroglu. Sharpe Reference, 2009. Won American Library Association’s RUSA Award for Best Reference Work, 2010.

“Chuck Palahniuk” and “Tom Spanbauer.” LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia. Ed. John Hawley. Greenwood, 2008. 844-45, 1155-56.

“A Selected Bibliography of Chuck Palahniuk.” Stirrings Still 2.2 (2005): 143-67. Rev. and Rpt.: Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk. Ed. Jeffrey A. Sartain. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. 193-227.

“’Even the Mona Lisa’s Falling Apart’: The Cultural Assimilation of Scientific Epistemologies in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fiction.” Stirrings Still 2.2 (2005): 25-47.

Additional Research

Book Reviews

“Flash Five Ways.” Rev. of They Could No Longer Contain Themselves, eds. Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney. American Book Review 33.4 (2012): 10.

Rev. of Clown Girl, by Monica Drake. Indiana Review 29.1 (2007): 188-89.

“The Rarest of Literary Concoctions.” Rev. of Icelander, by Dustin Long. American Book Review 28.2 (2007): 23+.

Rev. of Last Fall, by Ronald Sukenick. Indiana Review 28.2 (2007): 134-35.

Rev. of The Skyscraper That Flew, by Jesús Salvador Treviño. Indiana Review 28.1 (2006): 182-83.

Rev. of Exit Strategy, by Douglas Rushkoff. Indiana Review 27.1 (2005): 238-40.

“All the Lonely People.” Rev. of Stranger than Fiction: True Stories, by Chuck Palahniuk. American Book Review Nov. 2004: 26.

Presentations: Regional and National

“Serial Killers and Pseudonyms: Hardboiled Genre Tropes, Literary Authors, and The Hand That Feeds You.” SCMLA 2018, San Antonio, TX.

“’Shoot First, Think Never’”: Evil Dead’s Ash Williams as Critique of Neoliberal Individualism.” PCA/ACA 2018, Indianapolis, IN.

"Material and Reading: The Book Object and Chuck Palahniuk's Fiction." SCMLA 2016, Dallas TX.

“Long Live the Minimalisms: Unmasking Meaning in Contemporary Short-Short Fiction.” SCMLA 2015, Nashville, TN.

“Geeksploitation: Gender and Genius in The Big Bang Theory.” PCA/ACA 2015, New Orleans, LA.

“Technorealist Fiction: Narrating Digital Subjectivity in Analog Form.” SCMLA 2013. New Orleans, LA.

“Days Gone By: Robert Kirkman's Re-envisioned Western, The Walking Dead.” 40th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, University of Louisville, 2012.

“Posthuman Futures: Narrative and Universal Subjectivities in Popular Posthumanism.” MLA 2011, “Race and Posthumanism” panel, Los Angeles, CA.

“Invisible Carrots and Fainting Fans: Queer Humor and Abject Horror in ‘Guts.’” 37th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, University of Louisville, 2009.

“Silicon Gunslingers and Cyber Puritans: Myth, Masculinity, and the Development of the Information Industry.” 35th Annual 20th Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, 2007.

“Business Culture and Technorealism: Technology and Subjectivity in the Fiction of Coupland, Powers, Rushkoff, and Gibson.” 34th Annual 20th Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, 2006.

“A Man against the People: Postmodern Excess in Citizen Kane." Indiana University Conference on Excess, 2004.

"Light, Chaos, and Entropy: Contemporary Physics in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club." 2nd Chuck Palahniuk Conference: "Postcards from the Future," Edinboro University, Pennsylvania, 2003.

"Light, Chaos, and Entropy: Contemporary Physics in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club." 31st Annual 20th Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, 2003.