Dr. S.E. Gontarski

Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English
430 Williams Building
sgontarski@fsu.edu
English Department Profile

Professor Stan E. Gontarski specializes in Modernist texts and textuality, with an emphasis on the works of Samuel Beckett, and Modernist publishing. His oft cited The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) has become something of a classic among textual scholars, and the two volume of The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett are regularly consulted by scholars and theatrical directors alike: Vol. II, Endgame, ed. with Introduction and notes by S. E. Gontarski (London: Faber and Faber, 1993 and New York: Grove Press, 1993); and Vol. IV, The Shorter Plays, likewise ed. with Introduction and Notes by S. E. Gontarski (London: Faber and Faber, 1999 and New York: Grove Press, 1999).

In addition, his work on the history of publishing has appeared as Modernism, Censorship, and the Politics of Publishing: The Grove Press Legacy, (The Hanes Foundation, Rare Book Collection/University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000), a series that includes work by G. Thomas Tanselle, Elizabeth A. Eisenstein, Michael Winship, and Terry Belanger, among others, and he has edited the 50-year celebratory volume of American publisher Grove Press, The Grove Press Reader, 1951-2001, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 2001), the introduction to which serves as the press’s official history, available on its web page.

Archival sources associated with prof. Gontarski’s work are as follows:

And, most importantly:

He currently teaches courses in textual theory, physical bibliography, publishing history, and on such issues in publishing as censorship and ethics.