The Literature of Flight and Space Travel

University of Houston • University of Houston-Clear Lake • ISSO Annual Report Y2003 • 103

Irving N. Rothman [UH]

HISTORICAL AND MYTHIC LITERATURE HAS DEALT extensively with subterranean and ocean travel, terrestrial travel, and travel into space. Dr. Rothman has studied fantastic voyages as chief textual editor for the Stoke Newington Daniel Defoe Edition. The Consolidator, published in 1705, proved a satire on human conduct and governance as author Daniel Defoe described the race of Lunarians whom an inventor met when he ascended to the moon in a flying machine. (See "The Man in the Moon—an International Debate in Defoe Studies," Y2001 Annual Report [2002], pp. 102-105). Asecond subject of interest was America’s response to hot air balloons, as noted in the Philadelphia magazine The Port Folio, edited by Joseph Dennie, 1801-12. This anti-Jeffersonian magazine offered poetry and prose to describe Pierre Blanchard’s balloon flights in America on Jan. 9, l793, from the Walnut Street Prison in Philadelphia. (See "Joseph Dennie, a Sceptic, and Philip Freneau, a Celebrant of Ballooning in Early America," Y2002 Annual Report [2003], pp. 119-23.)

Dr. Rothman continues his editorial responsibilities with the Defoe edition and is currently editing the three volumes of Robinson Crusoe, The Life and Suprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), and The Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe (1720). Work also continues in the identification of the Defoe canon to determine whether works listed in the canon can be proven to be Defoe’s by stylometric analysis. In this work, Dr. Rothman teams closely with two colleagues, Dr. Rakesh Verma, associate professor of computer science, and Dr. Thomas Woodell, Jr., associate professor of English/Linguistics (retd.) and Luke Gilman (senior).

Dr. Rothman continues his efforts to produce an anthology of the poetry of The Port Folio during the editorship of Joseph Dennie. The poetry will be organized by classical literary genres. Students designated as University Scholars who have been selected in competition to work with professors on their projects have aided or are aiding in this project: Brandy Towers-Egli, and, in the fall semester 2004, Heath Harper; each student receives a stipend of $1000 from the university to engage in literary research. Doctoral student James Hall has also assisted in bibliographic study and textual entry. From these studies may come more critical analyses of poetry or prose with space-related themes.

In recognition of his scholarship, Dr. Rothman has been appointed the Martha Gano Houstoun Research Professor in Literature, 2004-05, in the Department of English.

Publication
Defoe, Daniel. The Political History of the Devil. Ed. I. N. Rothman and R. M. Bowerman. The Stoke Newington Daniel Defoe Edition. New York: AMS Press, 2003. 750 pp.

Funding
"Testing the Defoe Canon: Stylometric Analysis," NEH, 2004-2005, $160,655 (unfunded).

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