Raymond Malewitz’s ongoing research is focused on issues relating to contemporary American literature, literature and science, environmental literature, and material culture. His monograph The Practice of Misuse: Rugged Consumerism in Contemporary American Culture (Stanford University Press, 2014) examines the emergence in late twentieth-century American literature and culture of new figures—“rugged consumers”—who creatively misuse, reuse, and repurpose objects in their environments to suit their idiosyncratic needs and desires. In its discussion of rugged consumer representations, the book offers new ways of understanding how economic and environmental anxieties influence cultural artifacts during the contemporary period.