Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos (Ph.D. UWO)
Dean, Faculty of Arts & Faculty of Graduate Studies
Professor, Dept. of English & Creative Writing, BU
Adjunct Professor, Dept. of English and Creative Writing, UNB
Secretary, Ezra Pound Society
Associate Editor, Paideuma: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
Teaching, Research, and Graduate Supervision: I teach and research in twentiethcentury American Literature with a focus on difficult modernist texts (especially long
poems), often approaching them through the lenses of poetics, translation theory and
practice, prosody and rhetoric, and editorial theory and textual criticism. My research
interests have taken me to such archives, among others, as the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Yale U.; the New York Public Library; the Lilly Library, U. of
Indiana at Bloomington; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, U. of Texas at
Austin; the British Library, London, UK; and several manuscript libraries in Italy and
Greece. My graduate students have been trained in various aspects of modernist research,
have visited archives (with SSHRC support), and have published their work in books and
journals; they have also had the opportunity to attend international conferences like the
Modernist Studies Association (MSA) and the American Literature Association (ALA).
Over the past twenty-three years, I myself have attended approximately one hundred
conferences in the U.S., Canada, England, France, Italy, and Greece.
Though in January 2015 I moved from UNB to Brandon University, I continue to
supervise graduate students at UNB, both at the doctoral and master’s level.
My current projects include (i) The Correspondence of H.L. Mencken and Ezra Pound
(Oxford UP); (ii) Approaches to Teaching Ezra Pound’s Poetry and Prose (PMLA); (iii)
The Inmate at St Elizabeths: The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and Archibald
MacLeish; (iv) Ezra Pound’s Radical Politics in the Later Cantos; (v) The Sound of
Poetry: The Poetry of Sound--Free Verse and After; (vi) The Modernist Greek Long
Poem: George Seferis, Nikos Gatsos and Odysseas Elytis; (vii) a book on Constantine
Cavafy’s language(s); (viii) a bilingual edition of Andreas Empeirikos’ surrealist
collection Υψικάμινος (Blast Furnace; under consideration by Attica Publishers); (ix) an
annotated translation of Odysseas Elytis’ long poem Αξιον Εστι (Worthy It Is); (xiii)
H.D.’s Later Poetry: Trilogy; Vale Ave; Helen in Troy; and Hermetic Definition: An
Annotated Edition (at proposal stage); and (xiv) Approaches to Teaching Constantine
Cavafy’s Poetry (PMLA).
Publications: My essays on Ezra Pound and other Anglo-American modernist poets have
appeared in North American and European journals. I have contributed to many
collections of essays published in the U.S., Italy, France and Greece, including Dante e
Pound (Longo Editore, 1998), Ezra Pound e l’economia (Edizioni Ares, 2001), Ezra
Pound in Context (Cambridge UP, 2010), and The Cambridge Companion to H.D.
(Cambridge UP, 2012). As well, I am the author, editor, co-editor, or translator of a
number of books, including the following:
(i) The Celestial Tradition: A Study of Ezra Pound's "The Cantos" (WLUP, 1992);
(ii) Fiddlehead Gold: Fifty Years of the Fiddlehead Magazine (Goose Lane Editions,
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1995)
(iii) Literary Modernism and the Occult Tradition (NPF, 1996);
(iv) "I Cease Not to Yowl": Pound's Letters to Olivia Rossetti Agresti (U. of Illinois
P, 1998);
(v) Pound e l'occulto: le radici esoteriche dei Cantos (Mediterranee, 1998);
(vi) William Carlos Williams and the Language of Poetry (NPF, 2002);
(vii) The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia (Greenwood P, 2005);
(viii) An annotated edition of H.D. (writing as Delia Alton), Majic Ring, ed.
Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos (UP of Florida, 2009);
(ix) a Greek translation of L’America, Roosevelt e le cause della guerra presente
(preface and editorial supervision by Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos; trans. and
introd., Ioannis Kotoulas [Periplous, 2009]);
(x) A Japanese edition of The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia, trans. Takaomi Eda
(Yushodo Publishers, 2012);
(xi) The editorial care for Magic Mirror, Compassionate Friendship, Thorn Thicket:
An Annotated Scholarly Edition. Ed. Nephie J. Christodoulides. “Preface” by
Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos and Matte Robinson (ELS Editions, 2012);
(xii)
A Festschrift in Honor of Burton Hatlen. Ed. Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos
(NPF, 2013);
(xiii) A translation and performance text for Iakovos Kambanellis’ play The
Courtyard of Miracles (performed at the Richard Stockton College’s School
of Arts and Humanities, February 18-12, 2015); and
(xiv) An annotated edition of H.D.’s, Hirslanden Notebooks (ELS Editions, 2015).
Many of these book projects have been funded by four SSHRC grants—and my graduate
students have worked on several of these over the years, making considerable
contributions.
Other Professional Activities: For the past several years I have served as Book Review
and/or Associate Editor, Paideuma: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. As
Secretary of the Ezra Pound Society of North America, I am responsible for arranging on
an annual basis two sessions at each of the Modern Language Association (MLA)
Congress and the ALA. Over the past five years alone, I have evaluated approximately
ten tenure and/or promotion applications at Canadian, U.S., New Zealand, and Greek
universities. I continue to evaluate research papers--submitted to journals such as
Paideuma and Twentieth-Century Literature--and book manuscripts. I also continue to
evaluate research proposals for SSHRC and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Administrative Experience: Between February 1999 and December 2014 I served as
Assistant, Associate, and Acting Dean, School of Graduate Studies, UNB. In this
capacity, I have chaired and/or participated in--among many others--various university
committees, have stood in for the Dean in such committees as the Deans’ Council, and
have run UNB’s SSHRC (1999-present), CIHR (2007-present) and Vanier Awards
(2008-present) competitions. As well, a decade or so ago (2001-06), I was instrumental in
the creation and the running of the UNB’s Interdisciplinary Programme at the graduate
level. In 2010, I was a member of the administrative bargaining team that negotiated the
university’s first agreement with the Union of UNB Graduate Student Workers (PSAC,
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Local 60550); again this year, I am member of the same committee that is about to enter
negotiations for a second agreement. I have also chaired the UNB’s Scholarship
committee and served on the university’s Senate and Board of Governors (with a oneyear term on the Board’s Executive Committee). Since January 2015, I have served as
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Brandon
University.
Other: From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, I served first as Assistant Coach, UNB
men’s soccer team and later, for four years, as Head Coach, UNB women’s soccer team.
And for the past forty years I have played and coached soccer at all level (for instance, I
have coached several NB Boys and Girls Provincial as well as FDSA select teams,
winning an Atlantic U-15 Boys title and playing in several National Club tournaments)
and held soccer administrative positions and done committee work at the provincial and
national levels. Between 2005 and 2007 I served on the Canadian Soccer Association
(CSA) Harassment Committee and, before that, on the CSA Technical Committee (200305).