Biography
Areas of Specialization
Literary Criticism and Theory, Intellectual History and Philosophy, Photographic Criticism and Theory
History and Philosophy of Science, Computers and Knowledge Representation
American Literature, Modern poetry, Comparative Romanticism, Music and Poetry
Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Coleridge, Charles Sanders Peirce
Blake, Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, Henry James, William Carlos Williams, Faulkner
Activities and Interests
In collaboration with Hazard Adams, Searle has edited Critical Theory since 1965 (1985) and Critical Theory since Plato 3rd edition (2005); and with Raimonda Modiano and Peter Shillingsburg, Voice, Text and Hypertext (2004). He was the founding director of the UW Humanities and Arts Computing Center (now DX-Arts); Former Director of the Walter Chapin Simpson Humanities Center; and Director of the College Studies Program. He is one of the founding members of the faculty of the Comparative History of Ideas Program, as well as the Program in Criticism and Theory, and the Textual Studies Program. He has also served as Graduate Program Coordinator in Comparative Literature for several terms, and is an original member and current chair of the UW Intellectual Property Management Advisory Committee.
In addition to these academic interests, he actively is involved in music (arranging, composing, and performance) and poetry.
Work in Progress
- Plato, Aristotle, and the Poets
- Visible Intelligence: Essays on Photography, Theory and Criticism
- Imaginative Reason: Essays in Philosophical Criticism