Maggie McKinley
Literary scholar and critic, associate professor of English at Harper College, and a leading voice of the current generation of Mailer studies. Author of Understanding Norman Mailer (2017) and editor of Norman Mailer in Context (2021), and an officer of the Norman Mailer Society.
Maggie McKinley is an associate professor of English at Harper College, where she teaches composition and American literature. She is the author of Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950–75, and her work has appeared in Studies in American Jewish Literature, Philip Roth Studies, and The Mailer Review, among other places.
Within Mailer studies, McKinley wrote the first single-author critical survey of Mailer’s complete career, Understanding Norman Mailer (University of South Carolina Press, 2017), and edited the multi-author Norman Mailer in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2021), to which she also contributed the Introduction, the chapter “Violence,” and the closing “Afterword: Mailer after #MeToo” (McKinley 2021). She contributed a jacket note to J. Michael Lennon‘s collection Mailer’s Last Days (2022), describing it as “an inspiring testament to the value of Lennon’s literary life”.
She served as vice president of the Norman Mailer Society around 2017 and by 2021 was its president; she is also program director of the Philip Roth Society (McKinley 2021). Her other books include Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction (Bloomsbury), whose Mailer chapter, “Existentialism, Violent Liberation, and Racialized Masculinities,” is excerpted here by her permission.
In The Mailer Review
Listed by volume, with the contributor’s note as the journal printed it; the note is repeated only where its wording changed. Search the journal for all of them.
Vol. 6 (2012)
- “Mailer’s Modern Myth: Reexamining Violence and Masculinity in An American Dream,” 6.1 (2012): 158 — 2012 bibliography · article
Maggie McKinley is an Assistant Professor of English at Harper College in Illinois. She recently received her PhD from Marquette University, where she completed a dissertation entitled “Violence and Masculinity in American Fiction, 1950–1975,” which addresses works by Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Philip Roth. Her work will appear in the upcoming edited collection entitled Roth and Celebrity (Lexington Books), as well as in a forthcoming volume of Critical Insights (Salem Press) devoted to Philip Roth.
Vol. 7 (2013)
- “Exploring the Mystery of Marilyn,” 7.1 (2013): 407 — 2013 bibliography · article
Maggie McKinley is an Assistant Professor of English at William Rainey Harper College in Illinois, where she teaches courses in American Literature. Her work has appeared in Philip Roth Studies and The Mailer Review, and in the edited collections Roth and Celebrity (Lexington 2012) and Critical Insights: Philip Roth (Salem 2013). She is currently working on a book entitled Understanding Norman Mailer, to be published by U of South Carolina P.
Vol. 8 (2014)
- “Opening the Sarcophagus: Searching for the Author in Autobiography,” 8.1 (2014): 418 — 2014 bibliography · article
Maggie McKinley is Assistant Professor of English at Harper College in Illinois, where she teaches courses in American Literature. Her work has been published in Roth and Celebrity (Lexington 2012), Critical Insights: Philip Roth (Salem 2013), Studies in American Jewish Literature, and Philip Roth Studies. Her book, Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950–1975 (Bloomsbury) is forthcoming in 2015, and she is currently working on a book entitled Understanding Norman Mailer (U of South Carolina P).
Vol. 9 (2015)
- ““Up to the Nostrils in Anguish”: Mailer and Bellow on Masculine Anxiety and Violent Catharsis,” 9.1 (2015): 99 — 2015 bibliography · article
Maggie McKinley is an Assistant Professor of English at Harper College in Illinois, where she teaches courses in American Literature. She is the author of Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950–75 (Bloomsbury), and her work has also been published in Studies in American Jewish Literature, Philip Roth Studies, Roth and Celebrity (Lexington Press), and Critical Insights: Philip Roth (Salem Press). She is currently working on a book entitled Understanding Norman Mailer, under contract at University of South Carolina Press.
Vol. 10 (2016)
- “Norman Mailer’s Janus-Faced Project,” 10.1 (2016): 410 — 2016 bibliography · article
Maggie McKinley is Associate Professor of English at Harper College, where she teaches courses in composition and American literature. She is the author of Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950–75 (Bloomsbury, 2015), and her work has also been published in Studies in American Jewish Literature, Philip Roth Studies, and *The Mailer Review, *as well as in the edited collections Roth and Celebrity (Lexington, 2012), and Critical Insights: Philip Roth (Salem, 2013). Her book Understanding Norman Mailer is forthcoming from University of South Carolina Press in 2017.
Vol. 14 (2020)
Maggie McKinley is Associate Professor of English at Harper College. She is the author of Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2015) and *Understanding Norman Mailer *(U of South Carolina Press, 2017). Her work has also appeared in *Philip Roth Studies, Studies in American Jewish Literature, *and *The Mailer Review, *among other places. She is currently the president of the Norman Mailer Society, and the editor of *Philip Roth in Context *and *Norman Mailer in Context, *forthcoming in 2021 from Cambridge University Press.
Vol. 16 (2026) — forthcoming
- “Mailer’s Modern Myth: Re-examining Violence and Masculinity in An American Dream,” 16.1 (2026): 3 — forthcoming
Maggie McKinley is a Professor of English and Honors Program Co-Coordinator at Harper College. She is the author of *Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950-1975 *(Bloomsbury Press, 2015), *Understanding Norman Mailer (University of South Carolina Press, 2017), *and The Art of Looking Back: Joan Didion and American Nostalgia (Louisiana State University Press, 2026). She is also the editor of the Cambridge collections *Philip Roth in Context *(2021) and *Norman Mailer in Context (2021). *She previously served as President of the Norman Mailer Society, and is currently an Executive Co-Editor of the peer-reviewed journal *Philip Roth Studies. *
Related pages
- “Existentialism, Violent Liberation, and Racialized Masculinities” (2015) | Understanding Norman Mailer | Norman Mailer in Context | Mailer's Last Days: New and Selected Remembrances of a Life in Literature | Norman Mailer Society
- La Petite Bourgeoise (14.1) | The Fight (Taschen edition) (16.1)