Stanley Orr is Professor of English at the University of Hawai‘i, West O‘ahu, where he teaches courses in writing, literature, and screen studies. In 2018-19, Orr served as President of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association. He has published a number of essays in critical anthologies as well as articles in journals such as American Quarterly, Literature/Film Quarterly, and Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Orr’s book Darkly Perfect World: Colonial Adventure, Postmodernism, and American Noir was published with The Ohio State University Press in 2010. At present, Orr is conducting research on the teleplays of dramatist John Kneubuhl. In a recent publication—“‘I Wonder Which of You is Real': The Indigenous Confidence Man in John Kneubuhl's 'The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo'” (published in a 2021 issue of Studies in American Humor)--, Orr analyzes the ways in which Kneubuhl dramatized the life and exploits of Native Hawaiian provocateur Sam Amalu.
Ph.D. English
University of California, Los Angeles, 1997
C. Phil. English
University of California, Los Angeles, 1994
B.A. English, summa cum laude
University of California, Riverside, 1990
2009-Present: Professor of English (with tenure), Humanities Division
University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu
2007-2009: Associate Professor of English (with tenure), Humanities Division
University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu
2004-2007: Assistant Professor of English, Humanities Division
University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu
2000-2004: Associate Professor of English (with tenure)
California Baptist University
1994-2000: Assistant Professor of English
California Baptist University
1991-1994: Teaching Assistant, English Dept./Writing Programs
University of California, Los Angeles
- American Film Genres Survey
- American Literature Survey (General)
- American Literature Survey to 1865
- American Literature Survey: 1865 to Present
- American Literature: pre-1800
- American Literature: 19th Century
- American Literature: 1900-1945
- American Literature: 1940-Present
- American Literature: 20th Century
- Basic Composition
- British Literature: 1700-Present
- British Literature: 19th Century
- British Literature: 1880-1920
- British Imperial Romance
- California History
- Children's Literature
- Expository Writing for Teachers
- Film Genres: Film Noir
- Film Genres: Gangster Films
- Film Genres: Science Fiction
- Film Genres: Road Movies
- Film Genres: The Western
- History of Film
- Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir (M.A. Seminar)
- Humanities Seminar
- Humanities Traditions: East and West (with Prof. Jayson Chun)
- Intermediate Composition
- Introduction to Cultural Studies
- Introduction to Literary Studies
- Literary Las Vegas
- Literary Themes: Crime and Mystery
- Literary Theory
- Literature of the American West
- Major American Authors
- Multicultural Literature
- Multicultural Literatures, Theories, and Pedagogies (M.A. Seminar)
- Novelistic California (M.A. Seminar)
- Plantation Fictions
- Postcolonial Literature
- Senior Capstone Project
- Studies in Popular Literature: Adventure
- Studies in Popular Literature: Detective Fiction
- Studies in Popular Literature: Gothic Horror
- Television and American Society
- Television Auteurs
- TV Medical Dramas
- World Literature: 1600-Present
- World Literature (20th Century French/Francophone Literature)
- Young Adult/Adolescent Fiction
Books:
Darkly Perfect World: Colonial Adventure, Postmodernism, and American Noir. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Press, 2010.
The Pearson Custom Library Introduction to Literature. Eds. Kathleen Shine Cain, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Janice Neuleib, Stanley Orr, Paige Reynolds, Stephen Ruffus. Boston: Pearson, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012.
Documentary Film:
Original Concept Developer and Script Consultant, Hao Wela: The Untold Story of Hot Rodding in Hawai'i (Mark Hanson and Wojciech Lorenc, 2017)
Winner, Best Hawaii Film, 12th Annual Honolulu Film Awards, 2018
Journal Articles:
“Taft’s Chair, Serra Cross, and Other Props: Mission Revival Hospitality Pageants with Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, 1899-1909,” Pacific Coast Philology, 56.1 (2021): 99-119.
2021 Pacific Coast Philology Outstanding Article Award
“‘I Wonder Which of You is Real’: The Indigenous Confidence Man in John Kneubuhl’s 'The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo,'” Studies in American Humor, 7.2 (2021): 329-346.
"En-visioning Travel in Oceania: Interviews with Kealani Cook, Gemma Cubero del Barrio, and Florence "Johnny" Frisbie," Pacific Coast Philology, 54.2 (2019): 322-340.
"’Strangers in Our Own Land’: John Kneubuhl, Modern Drama, and Hawai‘i Five-O," American Quarterly, 67. 3 (2015): 913-936.
“Razing Cain: Excess Signification in Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Post-Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities 25.1 (2008): 8-22.
“A Dark Episode of Bonanza”: Genre, Historiography, and Sleepy Hollow,” Literature/Film Quarterly. 31.1 (2003): 44-49.
“Dark Places: Late Victorian Adventure and Film Noir,” Para-Doxa: Studies in World Literary Genres. 6.16 (2001): 123-152.
“Genres and Geographies: Cultural Decolonization in Mike Newell's Into the West,” Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies 4.1 (Fall 1999). <http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v4i1/orr.htm>
“Postmodernism, Noir, and The Usual Suspects,” Literature/Film Quarterly 27.1 (1999): 65-73.
"Emily Dickinson's "I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed--," The Explicator 53.4 (Summer 1995): 212-214.
Book Chapters:
"Diving-Dress Gods, Modernism, Cargoism, and the Fale Aitu Tradition in John Kneubuhl's 'The Perils of Penrose.'" New Oceania: Modernisms and Modernities in the Pacific. Eds. Matthew Hayward and Maebh Long. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019). 190-209.
"‘Welcome to the Fabled South’: John Kneubuhl’s Global Southern Gothic, 1959-1966." Small Screen Souths: Interrogating the Televisual Archive. Eds. Lisa Hinrichsen, Stephanie Rountree, and Gina Caison (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017). 203-220.
“SF Noir.” SF 101: A Guide to Teaching and Studying Science Fiction. Eds. Ritch Calvin, Doug Davis, Karen Hellekson, and Craig Jacobsen. (Science Fiction Research Association, 2014).
“‘A Man of Notoriously Vicious and Intemperate Disposition’: Western Noir and the Tenderfoot’s Revenge in Unforgiven.” Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: Volume II. Ed. Leonard Engel (Salt Lake City: Utah University Press. 2012). 148-167.
American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association Marshall Fishwick Travel to Popular Culture Archives Grant, 2019
Popular Culture Association Regional Chapter Seed-Money Grant, 2006
American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association Marshall Fishwick Travel to Popular Culture Archives Grant, 2006
Distinguished Scholar, California Baptist University, 2001-2
UCLA University Fellowship, 1990-1994
Selected Conference Presentations:
“A Wide-Angle View of Mar-a-Lago as Spanish Fantasy Resort,” Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), San Francisco, CA, Jan. 5-8, 2023.
'"Unlike Spock, he never adjusted': John Kneubuhl's 'Bread and Circuses,'" Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 10-13, 2022.
"Best Laid Plans, Good Stories, and Long Waves: Toward a Standup Paddleboarding Literary Canon," Surf Studies Roundtable, Chaminade University of Honolulu, May 28, 2022.
Introduction to "Public Humanities: Regional MLAs and Their Communities," Modern Language Association, Seattle, WA, January 9-12, 2020.
"'A Clown's Nightmare of a Masquerade Ball': John Kneubuhl's The Moon and I" (President's Address), Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, San Diego, CA, Nov. 14-17, 2019.
'"To you, I sell the stomach': John Kneubuhl's TV Medical Gothic," Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Bellingham,WA, Nov. 9-11, 2018.
"'My Newly Discovered Dimension': John Kneubuhl's “The Night of the Surreal McCoy” (The Wild Wild West, 1967) as Critical Autobiography," Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Honolulu, HI, Nov. 10-12, 2017.
“Memorials of an Older Civilization: Theodore Roosevelt’s Mission Revival Pageants,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Pasadena, CA, Nov. 11-13, 2016.
“‘Me Llamo Diaz!’: John Kneubuhl’s Small Screen Criollos,” “Breaking Through the Stucco Façade: Diversity and Southern California's Fantasy Past,” Historic Southwest Museum (Mt. Washington Campus of the Gene Autry Museum of the American West), Los Angeles, CA, March 19, 2016.
“Visioning Oceania with John Kneubuhl and Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl”(co-presenter), Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), Austin, TX, Jan. 6-9, 2016.
Contrapuntalism in John Kneubuhl's "The Andrew Elliott Story" (Wagon Train, 1964) and "Stopover" (The Virginian, 1969), Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Portland, OR, Nov. 6-8, 2015.
“Erected on the Mission Plan: President William Howard Taft’s Visit to the Glenwood Mission Inn, October 12, 1909,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Riverside, CA, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 2014.
"Colonial Adventure, Coming of Age, and Armstrong Sperry’s Call It Courage," The Seventeenth Biennial Conference on Literature and Hawai'i's Children, Honolulu, HI, June 6-7, 2014.
“The Night of the Burning Scripts: John Kneubuhl, Oceanic Drama, and The Wild Wild West,” Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy—Science Fiction Media,” Riverside, CA, April 11-14, 2013.
“A Place We Go to See the World: Frank A. Miller’s Mission Inn as Imperial Romance,” Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 6-9, 2011.
“‘This Rock Turned Inside Out’: Insularities of Hawaii Five-0,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Honolulu, HI, Nov. 13-14, 2010.
“Dissonant Hawaii Five-0: John Kneubuhl’s “Strangers in Our Own Land,” Popular Culture/American Culture Association National Conference, San Francisco, CA, March, 2008.
“What Had Once Been Desert”: Modernism and Las Vegas History in W.T. Ballard’s Dealing Out Death, 9th Annual Modernist Studies Association Conference, Long Beach, CA, Nov., 2007.
“Carlos Bulosan, John Okada, and Returning Veteran's Noir,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Oakland (ASA), CA, October, 2006.
“‘The Pacific was a Boston suburb’: Earl Derr Biggers, Louis Becke, and America’s Last Frontier,” Popular Culture /American Culture Association National Conference, San Diego, CA, March, 2005.
“(In)Continental Ops: Con-Men and Castaways in Dashiell Hammett and William Lindsay Gresham,” Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), San Diego, CA, Dec., 2003.
“‘Entre, Es Su Casa’: Narrating Empire at The Mission Inn,” California American Studies Association, Riverside, CA, May 2002.
“Signifyin’ Noir: Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo and Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets,” American Literature Association Symposium on Contemporary American Literature, Santa Fe NM, Oct. 2001.
“From Schoolmaster to Detective: Colonizing the Supernatural in Sleepy Hollow,” Southwest Texas Popular Culture Association, Albuquerque, NM, March 2001.
“‘On the edge of Chinatown’: Dashiell Hammett, Late Imperial Adventure, and Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction,” Modern Language Association (MLA), San Francisco, CA, Dec. 1998.
“Rewriting the Good War: Revisions of the WWII Returning Veteran's Narrative,” MELUS, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, April, 1997.
“‘...to look at him or read him’: Three Versions of Cape Fear,” Twentieth Century Literature Conference, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, March, 1997.
“Asian-Americans: Many Voices in California,” (with Prof. James Lu), the Eighth Annual Envisioning California Conference, Center for California Studies, Pasadena, CA, Sept., 1996.
“Detection and Documentation in Antonioni's Blow-Up,” 1995 Meeting of the Society for Literature and Science, Los Angeles, CA.
Interviews/Invited Lectures:
“‘I Wonder Which of You is Real’: The Indigenous Confidence Man in John Kneubuhl’s 'The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo,'” 2020 Quarry Farm Symposium: American Humor and Matters of Empire, Center for Mark Twain Studies, Oct. 3, 2020.
"Fa'aluma in the Wasteland: John Kneubuhl, Oceanic Modernism, and the 1960s TV Industry in Los Angeles," Institute for the Study of Los Angeles, Occidental College, March 21, 2018 .
Conducted interview with Producer/Director Roger Corman and Producer Julie Corman, Academy for Creative Media Masters Series, University of Hawai‘i, West O‘ahu, Kapolei, HI, Nov. 6, 2014.
Conducted interview with film composer John Ottman, Academy for Creative Media Masters Series, University of Hawai‘i, West O‘ahu, Kapolei, HI, Nov. 5, 2014.
“Submarines in the Movies: From Silent Service to Festive Comedy,” USS Bowfin Submarine Museum, Nov. 2012.
Guest Speaker, Hitchcock’s Vertigo Forum, Golden Gate Club, San Francisco, CA, March, 2012.
Conducted interview with Al Harrington, Oceanic Popular Culture Association Conference, Chaminade University of Honolulu, May 27, 2011.
Interviewed for article “Earlier Books: Darkly Perfect World: Colonial Adventure, Postmodernism, and American Noir— Stanley Orr describes how he tracked down his films,” Moving Image Archive News, May 2010.
Interviewed for book University of Hawaii-West Oahu: The First Forty Years, 1966-2006 (Edward J. Kormondy), University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010.
Interviewed on musical film genre for article “Movie Fans Love Positive Messages” (Zenaida Serrano), Honolulu Advertiser 10 August 2007
Interviewed on film noir for article “Reel Dark”(Kawehi Haug), Honolulu Weekly 28 September 2005.
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association
2023: Member, Nominating Committee
2022: Reader, Pacific Coast Philology
2022: Member, Nominating Committee
2021: Chair, Nominating Committee
2020: Member, Nominating Committee
2019: President
2018: First Vice-President
2017: Second Vice-President
2017: Conference Site Committee Co-Chair
2008-10: Member, Executive Committee
Oceanic Popular Culture Association
2018: Moderator/Organizer, Plenary Session, "Kaʻa holo ʻā puʻu puʻu: Hawai‘i Motocross Gets Air"
2006-Present: Co-organizer, OPCA Conference, Chaminade University of Honolulu
2006: Co-founder
2023: Chair, Tenure and Promotion Review Committee
2020-Present: Developer, Humanities Division Film, Media, and Popular Culture Concentration
2019-21: Coordinator, English DE Curriculum Development, Kekeka'a Ho'ono'auao Title III Collaborative Grant for Distance Education, Kaua'i Community College and UH West O'ahu (Gloria Niles, Co-PI)
2021: Chair, Humanities Division Personnel Committee (Promotion)
2021: Member, Humanities Division Personnel Committee (Contract Renewal)
2020: Chair, Faculty Personnel Committee
2020: Member, Tenure and Promotion Review Committee
2020: Interim Chair, Humanities Division
2019-20: Member, Faculty Senate Charter/Bylaws Committee
2019: Interim Chair, Program Review Committee
2018: Vice-Chair, Program Review Committee
2018: Member, Division Personnel Committee
2016-2018: Chair, Humanities Division
2016: Co-Chair, Chancellor Search Advisory Committee
2016-2018: Chair, Academic Affairs Committee
2015: Chair, Faculty Personnel Committee
2014-2016: Chair, Faculty Senate
2013: Interim Director, Writing Program
2009-2012: Chair, Humanities Division
2012-2014: Chair, Budget and Resource Committee
2012-2015: Chair, Humanities Division Personnel Committees
2012-2013: Assessment Coordinator, Humanities Division
2011-2013: Chair, Creative Media Program Development Committee
2011-2013: Chair, Chancellor’s Creative Media Advisory Committee
2010: Organizer, Humanities Club 16mm Film Screening (Hell’s Half Acre, 1954)
2010: Moderator, Humanities Club Harry Potter Roundtable
2010-2011: Chair, Digital Media Faculty Search Committee
2004-2010: Advisor, Humanities Club
2007-2008: Reader, Master’s Thesis Committee, College of Education, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
2006-2007: Chair, Academic Affairs and Resources Committee
2005-2007: Faculty Advisor, Associated Students of University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu
2006: Organizer, 16mm Film Screening: Orson Welles’s Macbeth (via LCC “Semester of Shakespeare”)
2005: Organizer/Programmer, Noir in the Pacific: University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu/Leeward Community College Film Noir Festival
2005: Organizer, Kakau Uhi Hawai‘i: An Afternoon with Master Tattooist Keone Nunes