I am a Lecturer in English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Clemson University. My first book, No Exit: Contemporary American Literature and the State (University of Virginia Press, 2025), argues that the thematic interests and formal strategies of a broad group of contemporary texts are best understood as attempts to work through the allures and frustrations of escaping both literary and political representation, constituting what I term a "poetics of escape." This is part of my broader research interests in the politics of running away, in American literature and culture broadly—in poetry, fiction, film, video games, graffiti, and elsewhere. My peer-reviewed scholarship covers the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, and all of my reading and writing catalyzes my teaching, which remains the vital heat of my intellectual life.
From 2011-2021, I helped run the small indie journal of poetry and short fiction, S/WORD, and I write poetry. Outside of that, I like soccer, hiking, and running (though typically not away from anything in particular).
rsmckel@clemson.edu