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 eight books, For a Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zero, 2022), Topophrenia: Place, Narrative, and the Spatial Imagination (Indiana University Press, 2019), Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism (Pluto, 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 Macmillan, 2013), Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel: A Postmodern Iconography (Bloomsbury, 2011), and Melville, Mapping and Globalization: Literary Cartography in the American Baroque Writer (Continuum, 2009).
Tally is the editor of eight collections of essays: 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 Macmillan, 2016), The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said: Spatiality, Critical Humanism, and Comparative Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Kurt Vonnegut: Critical Insights (Salem, 2013).
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 Macmillan, 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 Peter C. Kunze, Tally co-edited Kurt Vonnegut and Humor, a special issue of Studies in American Humor, New Series 3.26 (2012). Tally has also 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 eight books, For a Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zero, 2022), Topophrenia: Place, Narrative, and the Spatial Imagination (Indiana University Press, 2019), Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism (Pluto, 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 Macmillan, 2013), Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel: A Postmodern Iconography (Bloomsbury, 2011), and Melville, Mapping and Globalization: Literary Cartography in the American Baroque Writer (Continuum, 2009).
Tally is the editor of eight collections of essays: 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 Macmillan, 2016), The Geocritical Legacies of Edward W. Said: Spatiality, Critical Humanism, and Comparative Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Kurt Vonnegut: Critical Insights (Salem, 2013).
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 Macmillan, 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 Peter C. Kunze, Tally co-edited Kurt Vonnegut and Humor, a special issue of Studies in American Humor, New Series 3.26 (2012). Tally has also 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.
