The Conscious Reader is an exceptionally rich, thematic anthology of nonfiction prose and literary works, with a multidisciplinary and culturally diverse selection of readings. Renowned for the quality of its selections, The Conscious Reader represents a broad range of academic disciplines and interests, including art, cultural studies, education, psychology, philosophy, politics, science, technology, and environmental studies. The 168 selections also represent a wide range of genres: 25 personal reminiscences, 81 essays, 22 short stories, 36 poems, 2 plays, and 4 full-color paintings. They range from the classical (Plato's Crito) to the contemporary (Maya Angelou, Roger Rosenblatt, and Kenzaburo Oe).
A native of Staten Island, NY, Marc DiPaolo is currently serving as an Assistant Professor for both the English Department and the Department of Moving Image Arts at Oklahoma City University.
DiPaolo has written two full-length academic books, War, Politics, and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film and Emma Adapted: Jane Austen's Heroine from Book to Film. He has also written chapters for the books A Century of the Marx Brothers, Beyond Adaptation, and The Encyclopedia of Religion in Film. He has been an editor of Pearson Education's anthology The Conscious Reader since 1999, and has edited five editions of the textbook. His article, "Political Satire and British-American Relations in Five Decades of Doctor Who" - published in The Journal of Popular Culture Vol. 43, Issue 5 - caught the attention of the producers of the BBC 4 radio program "Thinking Allowed," and DiPaolo was interviewed by Laurie Taylor on January 5, 2011.
DiPaolo has a Ph.D. in English from Drew University, a Master's Degree in English from The College of Staten Island, and a Bachelor's Degree in English from the State University of New York at Geneseo.
