Robert T. Tally Jr. is a professor of English at Texas State University, where he teaches American and world literature, literary theory, and criticism.
Tally is the author of nine books: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: Realizing History Through Fantasy (Palgrave, 2022), For a Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zer0 Books, 2022), Topophrenia: Place, Narrative, and the Spatial Imagination (Indiana University Press, 2019), Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism (Pluto Press, 2014), Poe and the Subversion of American Literature: Satire, Fantasy, Critique (Bloomsbury, 2014; named CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2014), Spatiality (Routledge, 2013), Utopia in the Age of Globalization: Space, Representation, and the World-System (Palgrave, 2013), Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel: A Postmodern Iconography (Bloomsbury, 2011), and Melville, Mapping and Globalization: Literary Cartography in the American Baroque Writer (Bloomsbury, 2009).
Tally is the editor (or co-editor) of ten collections of essays: Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora, co-edited with Melody Yunzi Li (Palgrave, 2022), Spatial Literary Studies in China, co-edited with Ying Fang (Palgrave, 2022), Spatial Literary Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Space, Geography, and the Imagination (Routledge, 2021), Teaching Space, Place, and Literature (Routledge, 2018), The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space (Routledge, 2017), Ecocriticism and Geocriticism: Overlapping Territories in Environmental and Spatial Literary Studies, co-edited with Christine M. Battista (Palgrave, 2016), The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said: Spatiality, Critical Humanism, and Comparative Literature (Palgrave, 2015), Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative (Palgrave, 2014), Kurt Vonnegut: Critical Insights (Salem Press, 2013), and Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (Palgrave, 2011).
Tally served as the guest editor of "Geocriticism," a special focus of the American Book Review (2016), and he edited Spatial Literary Studies, a special issue of Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 14.3 (2014) and Spatial Literary Studies II: Problematics of Place, a special section of Reconstruction 14.4 (2014). With Eleonora Rao, he co-edited a special issue of Humanities devoted to "Negotiating Spaces in Women's Writing" (2018). The translator of Bertrand Westphal's Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces (Palgrave, 2011), Tally is the general editor of Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies, a Palgrave Macmillan book series.
In addition to his work on literary cartography and spatiality studies, Tally regularly teaches courses and writes about U.S. and world literature, as well as literary criticism and theory. With Andrew Cole, Tally co-edited a special section of PMLA on "Fredric Jameson's The Political Unconscious -- Forty Years On" (2022). Tally has also co-edited Kurt Vonnegut and Humor, a special issue of Studies in American Humor, New Series 3.26 (2012), with Peter C. Kunze. Additionally Tally has edited a volume on Edgar Allan Poe in the Bloom's Classic Critical Views series (Chelsea House, 2008), published essays on individual authors (including Melville, Poe, Irving, Hawthorne, Hawthorne, Twain, Tolkien, Vonnegut, and Neil Gaiman), and written widely on postnational American Studies, critical theory, fantasy, utopia, and globalization.
Dr. Tally majored in philosophy at Duke University, and later received his J.D. from the Duke Law School. In between, he earned his M.A. in literature and Ph.D. in cultural and critical studies through the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
Tally is the author of nine books: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: Realizing History Through Fantasy (Palgrave, 2022), For a Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zer0 Books, 2022), Topophrenia: Place, Narrative, and the Spatial Imagination (Indiana University Press, 2019), Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism (Pluto Press, 2014), Poe and the Subversion of American Literature: Satire, Fantasy, Critique (Bloomsbury, 2014; named CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2014), Spatiality (Routledge, 2013), Utopia in the Age of Globalization: Space, Representation, and the World-System (Palgrave, 2013), Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel: A Postmodern Iconography (Bloomsbury, 2011), and Melville, Mapping and Globalization: Literary Cartography in the American Baroque Writer (Bloomsbury, 2009).
Tally is the editor (or co-editor) of ten collections of essays: Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora, co-edited with Melody Yunzi Li (Palgrave, 2022), Spatial Literary Studies in China, co-edited with Ying Fang (Palgrave, 2022), Spatial Literary Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Space, Geography, and the Imagination (Routledge, 2021), Teaching Space, Place, and Literature (Routledge, 2018), The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space (Routledge, 2017), Ecocriticism and Geocriticism: Overlapping Territories in Environmental and Spatial Literary Studies, co-edited with Christine M. Battista (Palgrave, 2016), The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said: Spatiality, Critical Humanism, and Comparative Literature (Palgrave, 2015), Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative (Palgrave, 2014), Kurt Vonnegut: Critical Insights (Salem Press, 2013), and Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (Palgrave, 2011).
Tally served as the guest editor of "Geocriticism," a special focus of the American Book Review (2016), and he edited Spatial Literary Studies, a special issue of Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 14.3 (2014) and Spatial Literary Studies II: Problematics of Place, a special section of Reconstruction 14.4 (2014). With Eleonora Rao, he co-edited a special issue of Humanities devoted to "Negotiating Spaces in Women's Writing" (2018). The translator of Bertrand Westphal's Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces (Palgrave, 2011), Tally is the general editor of Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies, a Palgrave Macmillan book series.
In addition to his work on literary cartography and spatiality studies, Tally regularly teaches courses and writes about U.S. and world literature, as well as literary criticism and theory. With Andrew Cole, Tally co-edited a special section of PMLA on "Fredric Jameson's The Political Unconscious -- Forty Years On" (2022). Tally has also co-edited Kurt Vonnegut and Humor, a special issue of Studies in American Humor, New Series 3.26 (2012), with Peter C. Kunze. Additionally Tally has edited a volume on Edgar Allan Poe in the Bloom's Classic Critical Views series (Chelsea House, 2008), published essays on individual authors (including Melville, Poe, Irving, Hawthorne, Hawthorne, Twain, Tolkien, Vonnegut, and Neil Gaiman), and written widely on postnational American Studies, critical theory, fantasy, utopia, and globalization.
Dr. Tally majored in philosophy at Duke University, and later received his J.D. from the Duke Law School. In between, he earned his M.A. in literature and Ph.D. in cultural and critical studies through the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
