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Steven Trout

Steven Trout

Professor

Education

  • PhD, English, University of Kansas, 1993
  • MA, English, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1987
  • BA, English, University of Missouri-Kansas CIty, 1985

Research Areas

  • American and British Modernism
  • Twentieth-Century American Cultural Studies
  • First World War Literature
  • War Remembrance and Memorialization

Bio

A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Steven Trout joined the UA English Department in 2020, following appointments at the University of South Alabama (2011-2020) and Fort Hays State University (1993-2011).  His interdisciplinary research focuses primarily on the cultural representation of war in literature, visual art, and public monuments.  He is the author of three books– The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire:  War, Remembrance, and an American Tragedy (2020), On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919-1941 (2010), and Memorial Fictions:  Willa Cather and the First World War (2002)–and the editor or co-editor of multiple volumes, including Portraits of Remembrance:  Painting, Memory, and the First World War (2020),  World War I in American Fiction:  An Anthology of Short Stories (2014), and War +Ink:  New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway’s Early Life and Writings (2013).  His articles have appeared in a wide variety of journals, including The Hemingway Review, Midwestern Miscellany, American Literary Realism, Studies in Short Fiction, War, Literature, and the Arts, and Twentieth Century Literature.
Trout edits the book series “War, Memory, and Culture” for the University of Alabama Press and is the recipient of the 2017 MidAmerica Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Study of Midwestern Literature, an honor bestowed by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.

Selected Publications

Books Authored

  • The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire:  War, Remembrance, and an American Tragedy.  Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2020. Southwest Book Award Winner.
  • On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919-1941. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2010.
  • Memorial Fictions: Willa Cather and the First World War.  Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2002

Edited Collections

  • Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War.  Tuscaloosa, AL:  University of Alabama Press, 2020. Co-edited with Margaret Hutchison.
  • War + Ink:  New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway’s Early Life and Writings. Kent, OH:  Kent State University Press, 2013. Co-edited with Steve Paul and Gail Sinclair.
  • Cather Studies 6:  History, Memory, and War.  Lincoln, NE:  University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
  • The Literature of the Great War Reconsidered: Beyond Modern Memory. London: Palgrave, 2001.  Co-edited with Patrick J. Quinn.

Edited Editions of Primary Works, Anthologies, and Reference Books

  • Serpents of War:  An American Officer’s Story of World War I Combat and Captivity. Lawrence, KS:  University Press of Kansas, 2023. Co-edited with Ian Isherwood.
  • Points of Honor: Short Stories of the Great War by a US Combat Marine by Thomas Boyd.  Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2018.
  • World War I in American Fiction:  An Anthology of Short Stories.  Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014. Co-edited with Scott D. Emmert.
  • Scarlet Fields: The Combat Memoir of a World War I Medal of Honor Hero by John Lewis Barkley.  Lawrence, KS and Kansas City, MO: University Press of Kansas and the National World War I Museum, 2012.
  • Good-bye to All That and Other Great War Writings by Robert Graves.  Manchester, UK:  Carcanet, 2007.
  • American Prose Writers of World War I: A Documentary Volume.  Volume 316 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.  Detroit, MI:  Thomson Gale, 2005.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

  • “‘The same uniform with white men’:  Military Costume, African American War Experience, and Faulkner’s Flags in the Dust.”  Mississippi Quarterly.  76:1 (2023), 1-30.
  • “Afterword: Memoirs Great and Not-So-Great: Ulysses S Grant’s and John J. Pershing’s Narratives of Command.”  Wars Civil and Great:  The American Experience in the Civil War and World War I. David J. Silbey and Karnisorn Wongsrichanalai, eds.  Lawrence, KS:  University Press of Kansas, 2023.  245-268.
  • ”William March’s Company K:  History, Memory, and Metafiction.”  First World War Studies (special issue on American literature and the First World War, Alice Kelly. ed.). 12:3 (2021), 219-237.
  • “Mourning, Elegy, Memorialization from the Civil War to Vietnam.”  War and American Literature.  Jennifer Haytock, ed.  Cambridge University Press, 2021. 87-102.
  • “The Veteran:  Parades, Bitter Homecomings, and Fictions of the Doughboys’ Return.” A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War.  Tim Dayton and Mark Van Wienen, eds.  Cambridge University Press, 2021. 356-367.
  • “A ‘rush frénétic’:  History, Memory, and Georges Scott’s La Brigade Marine Américaine au Bois de Belleau.” Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War.  Margaret Hutchison and Steven Trout, eds.  Tuscaloosa, AL:  University of Alabama Press, 2020. 61-84.
  • “Returning from the Great War:  Gender, Home, and Hostility in Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Soldier’s Home’ and Thomas Boyd’s ‘The Long Shot.’” Midwestern Miscellany (Special Issue on the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, edited by Donald Daiker and John Beall). 46:2 (Fall 2018): 49-65.
  •  “In Their Time:  Teaching First World War Short Stories and the Case of Richard Harding Davis’s ‘The Man Who Had Everything.’” Options for Teaching Representations of the First World War. Debra Rae Cohen and Douglas Higbee, eds.  New York:  Modern Language Association, 2017. 257-64. Co-authored with Scott D. Emmert.
  • “World War I in American Memory and Its Relevance in the 21st Century.”World War I Remembered. Washington, DC:  Eastern National (American Battle Monuments Commission and National Park Service), 2017.  175-185.
  • “‘Playing Indian in the Backyard’:  American Masculinity, Modern Warfare, and Thomas Boyd’s Through the Wheat.  Midwestern Miscellany (Special Issue on Midwestern Literature and the First World War, edited by David Rennie). 64. (Fall 2016): 6-22.
  • “The Greatest Battle Ever Forgotten:  The Meuse-Argonne Offensive and American Memory.”  A Companion to the Meuse-Argonne Campaign.  Edward Lengel, ed.  London:  Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. 496-514.
  • “Hamilton and Higher Education: Revisiting Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House as an Academic Novel.” The Willa Cather Review. 55:1 (Summer 2011):  7-14.
  •  “Idealism, Deadlock, and Decimation:  The Italian Experience of World War I in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Emilio Lussu’s Sardinian Brigade.” Studi Medievali e Moderni. 14:2 (2010).  Reprinted in War+Ink:  New Perspectives on Ernest Hemingway’s Early Life and Writings, Steve Paul, Gail Sinclair, and Steven Trout, eds. Kent State University Press, 2014. Coauthored with Patrick J. Quinn.
  • “The Western Front Comes to Kansas:  John Steuart Curry’s The Return of Private Davis from the Argonne.”  Kansas History:  A Journal of the Central Plains.  31:2 (Autumn 2008):  194-211.  2009 Edgar Langsdorf Award of Excellence winner.
  • “Antithetical Icons?:  Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, and the First World War.” Cather Studies 7: Willa Cather as Cultural Icon.  Guy Reynolds, ed.   Lincoln, NE:  University of Nebraska Press, 2007. 269-287.
  • “Forgotten Reminders: Kansas World War I Memorials.”  Kansas History:  A Journal of the High Plains.  29:2 (Autumn 2006):  200-215.
  • Rebuilding the Outland Engine:  A New Source for The Professor’s House.”  Cather Studies 6:  History, Memory, and War. Steven Trout, ed.  Lincoln, NE:  University of Nebraska Press, 2006. 271-284.
  • “Seeing the Rattlesnake in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.  12:1  (Winter 2005):  99-114.
  • From ‘The Namesake’ to One of Ours:  Willa Cather on War.” American Literary Realism.  37:2 (Winter 2005):  117-139.
  • “‘Where Do We Go From Here?’: Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Soldier’s Home’ and American Veterans of World War I.”  The Hemingway Review.  20:1 (Fall 2000): 5-21.
  • “Willa Cather’s One of Ours and the Iconography of Remembrance.” Cather Studies 4: Willa Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections. Robert Thacker and Michael A. Peterman, eds.  Lincoln, NE:  University of Nebraska Press, 1999.  187-204.
  • “The Imperial Editor: Language, Race, and Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim.”   Joseph Conrad: Eastern/Western/World.  Wieslaw Krajka, ed. Lublin, Poland: East European Monographs, 1999.  207-221.
  • “‘Telling the Truth—Nearly’:  Robert Graves, Daniel Defoe, and Good-bye to All That.”  New Perspectives on Robert Graves.  Patrick J. Quinn, ed.  Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1999.  127-142.
  • “Christ in Flanders?:  Another Look at Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Gardener.’”   Studies in Short Fiction.  35: 2 (Spring 1998):  169-178.
  • “Narratives of Encounter:  H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and the Literature of Imperialism.”  Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies.  5:1 (Fall 1997):  35-45.
  • “Miniaturization and Anticlimax in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour.”  1997 Kappel Prize Winner.  Twentieth Century Literature. 43: 2  (Summer 1997):  125-143.
  • “R.H. Mottram, the Great War, and Europa’s Beast.”  Recharting the Thirties: A Collection of Critical Essays.  Patrick J. Quinn, ed. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1996.  51-63.
  • “‘Glamorous Melancholy’:  R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End.”  War, Literature, and the Arts.  2:1 (Fall/Winter 1993): 1-19.
  • “‘Terrible Vicissitudes’: Henry Williamson’s The Patriot’s Progress.” Focus on Robert Graves and His Contemporaries.  2:1 (Spring 1993): 28-32.