prof. dr. D.M. (Diederik) Oostdijk

Office hours: I don't have office hours, but you can reach me by email if you want to make an appointment. 

Research interests

American literature, 20th-century poetry, American Studies.

Teaching

• Poetry, 1 (BA)
• Visual Art and the American Poet (MA)
  

Research

My research focuses on nineteenth and twentieth-century American literature in a cultural and historical context. My Ph.D., a literary-historical analysis Poetry: A Magazine of Verse during the editorship of Karl Shapiro (1950-1955), resulted in various articles that reflect the importance of literary journals, on canon formation, and other issues of inclusion and exclusion. Various fellowships allowed me to finish Among the Nightmare Fighters: American Poets of World War II (University of South Carolina Press, 2011), which is a comprehensive portrait of a generation of war poets that is perceived to have been silent about World War II, but which was actually extraordinarily prolific. It tries to understand this paradox by drawing not only on their war poems, but also on their autobiographies, novels, memoirs, private letters, and unpublished drafts, culled from the poets’ archives. My current research projects zoom in on transatlantic cultural relations between Europe and the United States and on literature and visual culture in the postwar era.

Publications

(Edited) Books:

• Among the Nightmare Fighters: American Poets of World War II. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011 (forthcoming)
• Diederik Oostdijk and Markha G. Valenta (eds.), Tales of the Great American Victory: World War II in Politics and Poetics (European Contributions to American Studies, vol. 62). Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2006.
• "Karl Shapiro and Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (1950-1955)." Nijmegen: Mediagroep KUN/AZN, 2000 (Ph.D. dissertation).

Essays and Chapters in English:

Since 2005:

• “Aftersight and Foresight”: The Middle Generation and the War in Vietnam” PN Review 36.4 (March-April 2010): 69-71.
• “Karl Shapiro” The Literary Encyclopedia. 5 March 2009. [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4041]
• “Missed Connections and Plan B: Wesley McNair’s Family Poems” English Studies 88.5 (October 2007): 563-573.
• “Changing Family Values: The Cosby Show and The Simpsons Compared” Family Reflections: The Contemporary American Family in the Arts. Ed. Carmen Flys Junquera and Maurice A. Lee. Alcalá: Universidad de Alcalá, 2007.  93-101.
• "The Wartime Success of Karl Shapiro's V-Letter" Neophilologus 90.3 (July 2006): 445-462.
• "Randall Jarrell and the Age of Consumer Culture" Reading the Middle Generation Anew: Culture, Community, and Form in Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Eric Haralson (ed.). Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 2006. 113-132.
• "Literary Magazines" Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Volume 3. Jeffrey H. Gray, James McCorkle and Mary Balkun (eds.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. 944-948.
• "John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974)" Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Volume 4. Jeffrey H. Gray, James McCorkle en Mary Balkun (eds.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. 1343-1346.
• "John Frederick Nims (1913-1999)" Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Volume 4. Jeffrey H. Gray, James McCorkle en Mary Balkun (eds.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. 1144-1145.
• "Debunking the 'Good War' Myth: Howard Nemerov's War Poetry" Bombs Away: Representing the Air War over Europe and Japan. William Rasch en Wilfried Wilms (eds.). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 265-279.

2000-2005:

• "The Football Elegies of James Dickey and Randall Jarrell: Hegemonic Masculinity versus the 'Semi-Feminine Mind'" Upon Further Review: Essays on Sports in American Literature. Michael Cocchiarale and Scott Emmert (eds.). Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. 131-142.
• "Robert Lowell" Post-War Literatures in English: A Lexicon of Contemporary Authors (June 2004): 1-27, A1, B1-B2.
• "Shapiro is All Right: Karl Shapiro and William Carlos Williams," Rigor of Beauty: Essays in Commemoration of William Carlos Williams. Ian Copestake (ed.). New York: Peter Lang AG, 2004. 85-95.
• "'How Cruel Can Editors Be? Karl Shapiro, Conrad Aiken, and Edward Dahlberg in a Literary Row," Uneasy Alliance: Twentieth-Century American Literature, Culture and Biography. Hans Bak (ed.). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004. 185-197.
• "'Not Like an Editor at All: Karl Shapiro at Poetry Magazine," Jarrell, Bishop, Lowell & Co. Suzanne Ferguson (ed). University of Tennessee Press, 2003. 73-89.
• "Randall Jarrell" Post-War Literatures in English: A Lexicon of Contemporary Authors (September 2002): 1-19, A1-2, B1.
• "'Someplace Called Poetry': Karl Shapiro, Poetry Magazine and Post-War American Poetry" English Studies 81.4 (September 2000): 346-357.
• "Poetry before Shapiro & Shapiro before Poetry," East-West American Studies Conference Proceedings, 1998. Christa Buschendorf (ed.). Frankfurt: ZENAF, 2000. 177-204.

Selected Reviews:

• Recommended Books: Tim Kendall (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry; Philip Metres, Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront; James Anderson Winn, The Poetry of War). Peace Review 21.4 (October-December 2009): 513-521.
• "Dismantling Glory: Twentieth-Century Soldier Poetry, Lorrie Goldensohn" English Studies 86.5 (Oktober 2005): 468-469.
• "Harold Monro: Poet of the New Age, by Domini Hibberd" English Studies 84.5 (October 2003):490.
  

Other Activities

• Research Director, Faculty of Arts, VU University
• Secretary of Board of Netherlands American Studies Association
• Co-organizer of “War and War’s Aftermath” conference, June 12-13, 2009, VU University, Amsterdam
  

CV

Diederik Oostdijk (1972) is Associate Professor in the English Department at the VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He completed his Ph.D. on the editorship of Karl Shapiro at Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (1950-1955) in September 2000 and received his doctorate from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has received two Fulbright scholarships, research fellowships from Emory University, Indiana University, and the University of Texas at Austin. He is Research Director of the Faculty of Arts at VU University and secretary to the Board of the Netherlands American Studies Association.