James R. Aubrey, Ph.D.

James Aubrey’s interest in world cultures dates from 1962, when he went to Denmark as a high school exchange student. He earned a BS degree from the US Air Force Academy from 1964-68, where he graduated as the outstanding cadet in English, in German, and in Humanities. He served as an Air Force officer for 21 years, including assignments in electronic intelligence–to Thailand during the Vietnam War and, later in the Cold War, to the UK as Chief of Intelligence for the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing. While in the military he obtained an MA from Northwestern University and a PhD from the University of Washington, with a doctoral dissertation about Alexander Pope’s satire of bad taste in architecture and landscape gardening. Upon retirement from the Air Force, he began a second career as a Professor of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he started a new program in Cinema Studies. In the 1990s he took students to London for a semester abroad study of British literature. After a Fulbright Visiting Professorship to India in 2006, he took students there three times to study Bollywood films, and in 2018, he led a faculty/graduate student group on a month-long Fulbright-Hays program. His academic publications include four books: John Fowles (Greenwood, 1991), John Fowles and Nature (Associated University Presses, 1999), Fowles on Film (McFarland, 2015), and Vampire  Films Around the World (McFarland 2020). In the Denver community, he served for ten years on the board of Denver Sister Cities International. Having played soccer at the Air Force Academy, Aubrey currently volunteers in For Denver FC, advocating for a professional women’s soccer team. 

Select Publications

Aubrey, James R. “The Pink Plan: A Fresh Perspective.” Air University Review, vol. 33, no. 4, July-Aug. 1982, pp. 102–106.

Aubrey, James R. “Uncrucifying the Self: John Fowles and the Motif of the Hanged Man, Part One.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, vol. 13, nos. 3–4, Aug. 1992, pp. 296–303.

Aubrey, James R. “Uncrucifying the Self: John Fowles and the Motif of the Hanged Man, Part Two.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, vol. 14, nos. 1–2, Mar. 1993, pp. 109–117.

Aubrey, James. “Kipling and Maugham.” The Times Literary Supplement, no. 6346, 15 Nov. 2024, p. 32. It contains a discussion of the film The Vampire (1913).