Meet Our Staff

Gary Chase Johnson, Ph.D. Dean, College of Liberal Arts, Associate Professor of English Year Started at UF: 2000 Contact Information   Office Location: 200 Howard Street #C Telephone: 419-434-4643 E-mail: gjohnson@findlay.edu

Credentials
	Ph.D., University of North Carolina B.A., University of Virginia

A native of the southeastern United States, I spent most of my youth in Newport News, Virginia. I later ventured a few hours west--to the Virginia Piedmont--to attend college in Charlottesville. After college I moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina for graduate school, taking the year between my master's work and my doctoral studies to teach in Jouy-en-Josas, France; this is a beautiful small town near Paris and just outside of Versailles.

I came to The University of Findlay in 2000 as an Assistant Professor of English. For my first six years here I taught composition; writing and literature classes; courses on western and world literature; and literary theory and criticism.  In 2007 I made my first step into administration when I assumed the role of Chair in the English Department. The following year I was named Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; in 2009 I agreed to continue in this position on a more permanent basis.

I live in Findlay with my wife, Emily, and our two children, Chase (7) and Madeleine (5).

I received my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2000. Prior to that, I completed a B.A., also in Comparative Literature, from the University of Virginia. In graduate school my primary area of interest was late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century narrative fiction from the US, France, and Germany. My dissertation was an analysis of the concept of character in three novels from the modernist period. 

During my first few years at Findlay I began to refine my area of professional specialization, gravitating in particular toward narrative theory. My interest in narratology and my involvement with the International Society for the Study of Narrative have shaped my research and writing projects since 2001. 

As Dean, I oversee Findlay's departments of Communication; English; History, Political Science, and Law and the Liberal Arts; Justice Sciences; Language and Culture; Psychology; Religious Studies and Philosophy; and Visual and Performing Arts. I am fortunate to work every day with an amazing group of faculty, staff, and students.

My most substantial scholarly project is a book manuscript titled The Vitality of Allegory: Figural Narrative in Modern and Contemporary Fiction. This work, which reflects my interests in narrative theory and in world literature (I analyze narratives from North America, Europe, and Africa in it), is currently under review at The Ohio State University Press. 

Peer-reviewed journal articles include:

“Consciousness as Content: Neuronarratives and the Redemption of Fiction”  Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature.  41.1 (2008): 169-84.

“Death in Venice and the Aesthetic Correlative.”  Journal of Modern Literature 27.3 (2004): 83-96.

“The Presence of Allegory: The Case of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.” Narrative 12.3 (October 2004): 233-48.

“Interpretation Revisited.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal LXXXV.1-2 (2002): 53-80.

“A Tongue of One’s Own: Dante, Bloom, and Gates.”  Dante Studies: Journal of the Dante Society of America CXV (1997): 251-72.