Ian Afflerbach, Ph.D.

Ian Afflerbach is an Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of North Georgia. He teaches and researches modern American fiction, African American Literature, political theory, pulp periodicals, and the history of ideas. His first book, Making Liberalism New, examines the rise and fall of liberalism in the U.S. through major American fiction. His current book project, "Sellouts! The History of an American Insult" examines the figure of the "sellout" in American culture, exploring the forms of betrayal or misrepresentation that have cause so many communities to accuse one of their own of "selling out." His articles have appeared in PMLA, Novel, ELH, Modernism/modernity, Studies in the Novel, Modern Fiction Studies, and more.

• Ph.D., English, University of California, Davis, 2016
• B.A., English and Political Science, Wake Forest University, 2009

Books

Making Liberalism New: American Intellectuals, Modern Literature, and the Rewriting of a Political Tradition. Johns Hopkins UP, 2021. Finalist, Modernist Studies Association First Book Prize. Reviews: American Literary History, The Modernist Review; The New Rambler. 

“Sellouts! The History of an American Insult” [manuscript in progress]

Recent Journal Articles

“Carl Schmitt in Outer Space: on Cixin Liu’s ‘Dark Forest’.” NOVEL 56.2 (August 2023): 163-185. “On the Literary History of Selling Out: Craft, Identity and Commercial Recognition.” PMLA 137.2 (March 2022): 230-45.

“The American Fear of Literature: Sinclair Lewis, Satire, and the Noble Prize.” Letteratura d’America (The Nobel Prize and US Literature, Special Issue) 42.189 (2022): 5-26. “From Obama’s Presidency to Beatty’s Booker Prize: On the Notion of the ‘Racial Sellout.’” African American Review 54.3 (2021): 219-32.