English
R. Forrest Colwell Professor of American Literature
Education:
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1971
M.A. University of Chicago, 1967
B. A. Pittsburg (Kansas) State University, 1966
Courses Frequently Taught:
Gateway Colloquium 100: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War
English 280: Practical Criticism
English 351: 19th Century American Poetry
English 370: Lincoln in Fiction and Biography
English 370: Caribbean Voices
English 480: Senior Seminar (Emily Dickinson & Friends)
Honors/Awards:
Directory of American Scholars (1981)
Illinois Humanities Council Essay Grant (1983)
Elected to Membership, Society of Midland Authors (1986)
R. Forrest Colwell Endowed Chair in American Literature (1986)
Marine Bank Research Fellowship (1990)
麻豆直播 Award for Teaching Excellence (Sears Foundation Award,1991)
American Antiquarian Society, Summer Seminar on the History of the
Book in America, 1988
Rare Book School, Columbia University, 1990
Who鈥檚 Who in America (1994)
Saddlebag Selection for best book on American Methodism (2006)
Selected Publications/Performances:
Books and Plays:
Reading with Lincoln, Southern Illinois University Press, winner of the 2010-11 Illinois State
Historical Society's Russell P. Strange Memorial Book Award, and runner-up
for the
Lincoln Prize, 2011.
Diary of a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, (with Paul
Bushnell). Northern Illinois University Press, 1978; paperback
edition, 1981; 4 reprintings, 1984-.
Rediscoveries, University of Illinois Press, 1982.
A Reader's Guide to Illinois Literature (editor-in-chief and
contributor). Illinois State Library, 1985; second printing, 1987.
(5,000 copies each printing; state and national distribution)
Peter Cartwright: Legendary Frontier Preacher. University of
Illinois Press, 2005 [Winner of the inaugural Saddlebag
Selection of the Historical Society of the United Methodist
Church for the best book on American Methodism, 2006]
Lincoln鈥檚 in Town! (with Nancy Steele Brokaw). 2007-09. Produced
in Bloomington IL, Feb., 13-15, 2009, as part of the celebration
of the bicentenary of Abraham Lincoln鈥檚 birth, at the Bloomington Center
for the Performing Arts.
Some Favorite Articles and a Poem:
鈥淩eading Between the Texts: Benjamin Thomas鈥檚 Abraham Lincoln
and Stephen Oates鈥檚 With Malice Toward None,鈥� Journal of
Information Ethics, 3: 1 (1994) 8-24.
鈥溾�楾he Power to Hurt:鈥� Lincoln鈥檚 Early Use of Satire and Invective,鈥�
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 16: 1 (1995) 39-58.
鈥淭he P. Quinn Harrison Murder Trial,鈥� Lincoln Herald (Summer 1997), 59-79.
"Why Thoughts are Better Than Music: Emily Dickinson's Fascicle 18
as a Lyric Sequence," Roundtable on the Fascicles, Dickinson
Electronic Archives.
鈥淎braham Lincoln and the Two Peters,鈥� Journal of the Abraham Lincoln
Association, vol. 22, no. 2 (June, 2001), 27-48.
鈥淜nowing Grasses: Aim茅 C茅saire鈥檚 鈥楥ahier d鈥檜n retour au pays natal鈥�
and Walt Whitman鈥檚 鈥楽ong of Myself,鈥� Revista Interamericana,
XXXI, 1-4 (Jan.-Dec., 2001).
鈥淲hat Abraham Lincoln Read: An Annotated and Evaluative
Bibliography,鈥� Journal of the Abraham Lincoln
Association (vol. 28, num. 2; Summer, 2007), 28-81.
鈥淩猫sp茅 ba Matinik and for Aim茅 C茅saire,鈥� Anthurium, 2: 1 (Spring 2004).
Faculty Status:
Tenured, at 麻豆直播 since 1970; next leave, 2012-13
Professional and Personal:
Professing literature means doing counter-cultural work. As part of the Humanities,
literature, though plainly undervalued in contemporary American life and education,
remains a crucial means of understanding our past, of managing our lives in the present,
and anticipating what the future may bring. In other words, literature is one of the
ways in which we make sense of the world. And, as a discipline, literary studies aims,
through an exalted teaching of reading, to help students 鈥榤ake sense of the ways in
which we make sense of the world鈥� (to use critic Frank Kermode鈥檚 probing phrase).
To do this well is difficult: students must read closely, contextualize what they
read, and then talk and write about literature in a critical way. If we are successful
in a class, every student will walk away at semester鈥檚 end with better cultural literacy
and an enhanced intellectual capability and confidence. Every student: from the English
major who is headed directly into the 鈥榳orld of work,鈥� to newly-minted secondary teachers,
to those looking ahead to graduate school in literature or writing, law or business.
In my own scholarly and creative writing, I try always to push my subjects well beyond
where I find them at the outset, whether working on Lincoln (scholarly essays, book-length
critical study, play, poems), or the literature of the Haitian Revolution (articles,
poems and a book-in-progress). This approach may seem obvious; yet too much writing,
scholarly or creative, is self-confined within a small corral of convention. So I
take risks with my mind and style鈥搈odest rather than radical risks, in my own view鈥揳nd
though failure hurts, it鈥檚 tonic too in a way, reminding me of Samuel Beckett鈥檚 admonition:
鈥榝ail better next time.鈥�