DR. JOHN COOKE

Professor
Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1976

In the twenty five years since receiving his doctorate and beginning work at UNO, John Cooke's teaching and research interests have been African literature, the modern and contemporary novel, and the relationships of fiction with music and painting. His first book, published in 1986, was on the South African novelist Nadine Gordimer, who was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His second book explored the use of painting by six contemporary Ontario writers, among them Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and Michael Ondaatje. Dr. Cooke recently completed a manuscript on the use of music in the novels of George Eliot, E. M. Forster, and Joseph Conrad. Dr. Cooke's next writing project will be on the representation of jazz (a long-time interest) in 20th Century fiction.

In the past five years Dr. Cooke has offered graduate seminars on the use of music and painting in British fiction, on English travel literature, and on the novel as a genre. He regularly teaches the 18th Century, modern, and contemporary novel classes for majors. He has been offering the later two in a distance learning format (no class meetings, all communication through Blackboard) and is offering a course on literature of the two world wars in this format this semester. Like other faculty, Dr. Cooke regularly teaches freshman composition and other literature courses. This variety in teaching, he says, is one of the most interesting things about being a university teacher.

Dr. Cooke has also enjoyed the variety in administrative work he's been allowed during my years at UNO. He has done stints as Undergraduate Coordinator, Chair of Freshman English, Graduate Coordinator, and Associate Dean of Liberal Arts. For over a decade he was chair of the English Department, a job he says he found interesting after the first years learning the ropes.

A long-time student of the alto saxophone, Dr. Cooke plays it recreationally with John Gery (piano) and Cooper Mackin (alto and piano). This summer he started studying chess. His major recreation is reading, mostly novels.

Phone Number:
(504) 280-7322

Email Dr. Cooke@
jwcooke@uno.edu

Address: Liberal Arts Building 175

Office Hours:

TTH 7:30-8:00am
T 11:00am-1:00pm
W 10:30am-12:30pm

Courses for Fall 2007:

Engl 1157-032:
Freshman Composition I
8:00-9:15am

Engl 2228-003:
Introduction to Poetry
9:30-10:45am

Engl 4917-476
The Contemporary Novel
(Online)