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Edward Jayne

Born in 1934, I received my B.A. and M.A. from the University of California in 1957 and 1962, and my Ph.D. from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo in 1970. Altogether, my academic experience spanned thirty-seven years, during which I taught at fourteen colleges and universities, including one private college, three community colleges, four state universities, three major state universities, and three major foreign universities. I retired emeritus from the Western Michigan University English Department in 1999 after having taught there for 18 years.

Throughout my career I specialized in contemporary critical theory. I also taught a large variety of other courses in both composition and literature. My own particular approach, as explained in my book Negative Poetics, emphasized the function of self-deception in the composition and structural organization of both fiction and poetry. Since my retirement I have emphasized the pursuit of verifiable truth in the advance of skepticism, materialism, and science that has been unique unto the history of western civilization.

My articles have been published in College English, Genre, Style, Literature and Psychology, Minnesota Review, The Centennial Review, Change, American Studies, and Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine. Also significant was my monograph-length paper that traces the early history of judicial review in the United States, demonstrating how a non-literary version of deception played a crucial role in the passage of the U.S. Constitution.