+966-13-849-5478
tconnolly1@pmu.edu.sa
F-108
Dr. Thomas F. Connolly has many years of experience in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also worked on curriculum development and creating innovative courses. He is a widely experienced researcher. He holds a B.A. from Suffolk University, an M.A. from Boston University, and a Ph.D. from Tufts University. He is the author of three books, George Jean Nathan and the Making of Modern American Drama Criticism, British Aisles, Genus Envy, and dozens of articles. Dr. Connolly has been a guest lecturer in the USA and throughout Europe; he has given papers at numerous international conferences. He served as the U.S. Resident for Northern Moravia for the Department of State. He has been a theatre history consultant for The New York Times, The New Yorker magazine, National Public Radio, the BBC, the Public Broadcasting Service, and CBS. He has also been a cultural commentator for National Public Radio and PBS television. Dr. Connolly serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals. In addition to his academic experience, he is a former elected official and worked in government for many years. He has also been a professional theatre and film critic, and an international film festival adjudicator. He has twice been a Fulbright Senior Scholar; he has lectured in Central Europe for the United States Information Agency. Professor Connolly is the recipient of the Parliamentary Medal of the Czech Republic.
Dr. Connolly hopes to inspire and encourage a new generation of leaders for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He wants to teach classes that will foster greater intercultural communication and media literacy.
Books: Genus Envy: Nationalities, Identities and the Performing Body of Work. Cambria Press, 2010. George Jean Nathan and the Making of Modern American Drama Criticism. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000. (Finalist for the 2001 George Freedley Prize of the Theatre Library Association, “given to the author of the most distinguished work of drama scholarship of the year.”) British Aisles: Studies in English and Irish Drama and Theatre from Medieval through Modern Times. Ostrava University Press, 1998 (sixth edition, 2020). Good-bye, Good Ol’ USA. What America Lost in World War II: The Movies, The Home Front, and Postwar Culture. Houghton Mifflin/PMU Press. (Forthcoming, Spring 2023).
Select articles and book chapters: “William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy and MGM’s Vanished American Pastoral. Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance. Vol. XV, no. 3. 2023, pp. 173-189. “Ancestral Voices Digitalizing War: Robot Warriors at the Gates?” Futuri. Vol. 18, April. 2023. O’Neill and Camille: Domestic Drama in “The Web” and “Recklessness” Ostrava Journal of English Philology. Vol. 14, no. 2. 2023, pp, 5-20. “Disinforming the Misinformed: Elitism and Media Manipulation.” The Journal of International Development and Conflict. Vol. 12, December 2022, pp. 130-136. “Breaking Bad, Dostoevsky, Nihilism, and Marketplace Morality.” The European Legacy, Volume 28, Issue 2. 2022, pp. 173-185. “Fruits from the Higher Branches of Learning: The Future of Bringing Research into the Classroom.” Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice 21 (11) 2021, pp. 197-202. “Neither Fallen Angel nor Risen Ape: Desentimentalizing Robert Smith,” in Eugene O’Neill’s One-Act Plays: New Critical Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. “Displaced Persons and Documentary Illusions: Fred Zinnemann’s The Search.” Film Criticism. Volume 42, Issue 1, March 2018. “Re-righting” Finland’s Winter War: Robert E. Sherwood’s There Shall Be No Night[s]. Journal of American Drama and Theatre. Vol. XXVIII, no. 1. 2017. 1-16. “The Element of Risk in A Hazard of New Fortunes.” Ostrava Journal of English Philology. Vol. 6, no. 2. 2016. “Happy Endings in American Tragedies” in Reflections on Ethical Values in Post(?) Modern American Literature, University of Silesia Press, 2000; "The Place, The Thing: Israel Horovitz's Gloucester Milieu" in Israel Horovitz: A Collection of Critical Essays, Greenwood, 1994.
Senior Fellow, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd Center for Futuristic Studies. World Futures Studies Federation, Middle East and North Africa Chapter. Research Fellow, INTI University, Nilai, The Federation of Malaysia.
Cultural studies, futures studies, theatre and film history, and drama.
International Federation for Theatre Research, American Society for Theatre Research, The Noel Coward Society, The Eugene O’Neill Society, Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society, Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, and Life Member, Fulbright Association.