{"id":48,"date":"2016-04-08T14:11:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T14:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-hiltner-english-ucsb-edu-v05.pantheonsite.io\/?page_id=48"},"modified":"2019-10-06T00:10:36","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T00:10:36","slug":"48-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/48-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Curriculum Vitae"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Curriculum Vitae <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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It is increasingly the case that you will find a professor posting his or her curriculum vitae, which in the academic world are roughly equivalent to resumes, online. And for good reason, as they provide students, parents, colleagues, and others with an overview of an instructor\u2019s credentials, publications, teaching, current research, and so forth. There is, however, a shortcoming to the traditional CV: while they may list a broad range of information, they offer little in the way of detail. So, I decided to flesh out this material on this site. By scrolling down or clicking on the categories, you will find a good deal more (and more up-to-date) information than typically resides on a\u00a0print CV.<\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

Publications & WIP (33)<\/p>\n

Books<\/a> (5)<\/p>\n

Chapters & Articles<\/a> (21)<\/p>\n

Works in Progress<\/a> (5)<\/p>\n

Popular Writing<\/a> (1)<\/p>\n

Talks & Conferences (69)<\/p>\n

Scholarly Talks<\/a> (38)<\/p>\n

Panel Organizer<\/a> (12)<\/p>\n

Conference Director<\/a> (13)<\/p>\n

Public Talks & Events<\/a> (6)<\/p>\n

Courses & Teaching (168)<\/p>\n

UCSB Courses<\/a> (47)<\/p>\n

Princeton Courses<\/a> (2)<\/p>\n

Harvard Courses<\/a> (5)<\/p>\n

Individual Teaching<\/a> (109)<\/p>\n

Teaching Initiatives<\/a> (5)<\/p>\n

Teaching Philosophy<\/a><\/p>\n

Professional Service (68)<\/p>\n

Non-University<\/a> (15)<\/p>\n

UCSB<\/a> (53)<\/p>\n

Princeton<\/a> (1)<\/p>\n

Harvard<\/a> (9)<\/p>\n

Degrees\/Appointments<\/a> (11)<\/p>\n

Honors\/Awards<\/a> (23)<\/p>\n

Websites<\/a> (11)<\/p>\n

Personal<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n

<\/a>Books<\/em><\/p>\n

Writing a New Environmental Era: Moving Forward to Nature<\/em>.\u00a0Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

(Routledge, 2020).<\/p>\n

This book has two parts. The first introduces an idea that may make little sense on first hearing: For the good of our planet and the life that lives on it, including human beings, we need to work at moving forward to nature, rather than longing to get back to it. As we shall see, the notion that human beings once lived at peace with nature is little more than a myth, a story repeated so often that we have come to believe it\u2019s true. It\u2019s not…<\/p>\n

The second half of this book explores how the humanities can help by introducing what may seem like another nonsensical idea: that we can write the future into being. This may sound like the stuff of fiction. A character in a novel writes something down in her journal, only to discover the next morning that it has come to be… Although it sounds like fantasy, something of the sort can\u2014and in fact desperately needs to\u2014happen. Humanity\u2019s many beliefs and practices, including those that impact the earth, its climate, and all its myriad forms of life, have been written into being over the centuries. Given that more than a few of these beliefs and practices are downright destructive in environmental and other ways, we now need to take up the formidable challenge of writing new, more environmentally sound and socially just ones. Seriously, we all need to get writing, now. If we succeed, our children will one day wake up in a better world that we have written for them. view book cover<\/a><\/p>\n

from\u00a0Writing a New Environmental Era<\/em><\/p>\n

What Else is Pastoral? Renaissance Literature and the Environment<\/em>.\u00a0Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

(Cornell University Press, 2011).<\/p>\n

As a great deal of ink has been spilled on the question of representation, I do not presume to have anything new to add. Recalling the silent, gesturing Cratylus (whom I, like Plato, take very seriously), my interest is not in the representational, but rather the gestural, the fact that, when faced with the representational quagmire that has given pause to thinkers from Plato through and past Derrida, some poets and artists, especially those directing themselves to their surrounding environment, pointed us there too, rather than attempting to capture it on canvas, or between the boards of a book. Of course, they often (and often unavoidably) did that as well, but it is the gesture, and the preference of the gesture over the representation, that interests me most. As perhaps it should us all; for well over two thousand years we have largely neglected gesture while endlessly theorizing and making a fetish of representation.\u00a0view book cover<\/a><\/p>\n

from\u00a0What Else is Pastoral?<\/em><\/p>\n

Milton and Ecology.<\/em> Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

(Cambridge University Press, 2003; paperback in 2009; Kindle 2010).<\/p>\n

When we, like Milton\u2019s Eve (tempted by the thought of what we might become) forget, even for a moment, that we still need our roots to run deep into our place on Earth, what happens to the place?\u00a0Milton\u2019s answer is that it will surely suffer as Earth feels the wound of our uprooting\u2026It is not only our place on Earth which suffers from our marginalizing of it, but as Eve laments when she is exiled from her place, it will also be felt by us as an unexpected stroke worse than death\u2013a startling and altogether chilling prophesy on Milton\u2019s part that is now being felt in innumerable places across the Earth. view book cover<\/a><\/p>\n

from\u00a0Milton and Ecology<\/em><\/p>\n

Ecocriticism: The Essential Reader<\/em>. Edited and Introduced by Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

(Routledge, 2014, Paperback 2014).<\/p>\n

Having taught a range of courses in ecocriticism in recent years, ranging from graduate seminars to large lectures, I have repeatedly found myself in need of a collection of essays for my students containing seminal, representative, and contemporary work in the field. Unfortunately, no existing book fits the bill, though a few come close. The Green Studies Reader<\/em>, for example, which Routledge published in 2000, is a strong candidate, as it contains a number of classic ecocritical writings.\u00a0 However, as ecocriticism has in some sense been reinvented in the last decade, it lacks chapters on such essential and timely issues as environmental justice and globalization. Conversely, recent texts, such as Environmental Criticism for the 21st\u00a0Century<\/em> (Routledge 2011), which I coedited, speak to newer trends, but do little to chart the history and growth of the field. In response to this problem,\u00a0Ecocriticism: The Essential Reader <\/em>brings together a range of works that defined the field in its first few decades, as well as new writings that are helping to redefine it today.\u00a0view book cover<\/a><\/p>\n

from\u00a0Ecocriticism<\/em><\/p>\n

Environmental Criticism for the 21st Century.<\/em> Edited and Introduced by Stephanie LeMenager, Tess Shewry, and Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

(Routledge, 2011).<\/p>\n

In 1967, in an essay on \u2018The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,\u2019 Lynn White, Jr. opened with an anecdote, relating a conversation in which he disabused Aldous Huxley of the notion that Europe\u2019s environmental crisis is a relatively recent phenomenon. As White would repeatedly make clear throughout the essay, such a belief is far from accurate\u2026Given that White\u2019s essay became enormously influential and controversial (largely because of its blistering indictment of Christianity on environmental grounds), it would have seemed that the time had come to radically reassess the long history of the West\u2019s relationship to the environment.\u00a0view book cover<\/a><\/p>\n

from\u00a0Environmental Criticism for the 21st Century<\/em><\/p>\n

Renaissance Ecology: Imagining Eden in Milton\u2019s England.<\/em> Edited and Introduced by Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

(Duquesne University Press, 2008).<\/p>\n

With the publication of Thomas Moore\u2019s\u00a0Utopia<\/em> in 1516, it may have seemed as if early modern England had found the place whereby its most optimistic of futures could be imagined.\u00a0 But the truth is that there was already a serious contender for that role: Eden.\u00a0 To a modern reader this may seem counterintuitive.\u00a0 After all, isn\u2019t edenic literature, like pastoral texts that posit a golden age, in some sense just the opposite of the utopian genre in that the concern is not with an imagined future but rather with a lost past?\u00a0 While it is certainly true that both Eden and the golden age, which were frequently conflated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were imagined as lost paradises that existed at the dawn of human history, these\u00a0topoi<\/em> were also seen as places that might be regained in the future.\u00a0 What made Eden of particular interest to early modern England was that, as a pristine garden, it captured the imagination of a country in the midst of an environmental crisis of unprecedented proportions.\u00a0view book cover<\/a><\/p>\n

from\u00a0Renaissance Ecology<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>Book Chapters and Articles<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cJane Eyre and the Feminist\/Post-Colonial Dilemma.\u201d In the Blackwell Companion to the Bront\u00ebs<\/em>, ed. Diane Long Hoeveler. (Blackwell, 2016).<\/p>\n

\u201cSixteenth-Century Artisanal Practices and Baconian Prose.\u201d In New Ways of Looking at Old Texts<\/em>, ed. Michael Denbo. (Renaissance English Text Society, 2015).<\/p>\n

“Reading the Present in Our Environmental Past.”\u00a0Ecological Approaches to Early Modern English Texts: a Field Guide to Reading and Teaching<\/em>. eds. Lynne Bruckner, Jennifer Munroe, and Edward J. Geisweidt (Ashgate, 2015).<\/p>\n

“Early Modern Ecocriticism.” In\u00a0The Return of Theory in Early Modern English Studies<\/em>, eds. Paul Cefalu, Gary Kuchar, Bryan Reynolds (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).<\/p>\n

Introduction to\u00a0<\/em>Ecocriticism: The Essential Reader<\/em>\u00a0(Routledge, 2014)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cNature.\u201d In\u00a0The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.<\/em> (Princeton University Press, 2012).<\/p>\n

\u201cLiterature in the Ages of Wood, Tallow, Coal, Whale Oil, Gasoline, and Atomic Power.\u201d PMLA editorial column coauthored by Ken Hiltner (March 2011).<\/p>\n

Introduction (coauthored by Ken Hiltner) to Environmental Criticism for the 21st Century.<\/em> Edited by Stephanie LeMenager, Tess Shewry, and Ken Hiltner. (Routledge, 2011).<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly Modern Ecology.\u201d In\u00a0A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture.<\/em> (Blackwell, 2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cRenaissance Literature and Our Contemporary Attitude Toward Global Warming.\u201d\u00a0Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment<\/em> 16.3 (Summer 2009).<\/p>\n

Introduction to Renaissance Ecology: Imagining Eden in Milton\u2019s England.<\/em> Edited by Ken Hiltner. (Duquesne University Press, 2008).<\/p>\n

\u201cShirley and the Luddites.\u201d Bronte Studies<\/em> 33.2 (July 2008).<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Belch\u2019d fire and rowling smoke\u2019: Air Pollution in\u00a0Paradise Lost.<\/em>\u201d In\u00a0Milton, Rights and Liberties.<\/em> Essays from the Eighth International Milton Conference. (Peter Lang, 2006).<\/p>\n

\u201cRipeness: Thoreau\u2019s Critique of Technological Modernity.\u201d In\u00a0The Concord Saunterer<\/em>, Special\u00a0Walden<\/em> Sesquicentennial Issue, Ed. Richard J. Schneider. (The Walden Society, 2004).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ecological Importance of Place in\u00a0Paradise Lost.<\/em>\u201d In American Literary Criticism Now<\/em>, Ed. Radojka Vukcevic. (University of Montenegro Press, 2004).<\/p>\n

\u201cA Defense of Milton\u2019s Environmentalism.\u201d\u00a0English Language\u00a0Notes<\/em> 40.3 (March 2003).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Portrayal of Eve in\u00a0Paradise Lost:<\/em> Genius at Work.\u201d In\u00a0Milton Studies<\/em> 40, Ed. Albert Labriola. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I, Persephone, Could Not Stop for Death: Emily Dickinson and the Goddess.\u201d\u00a0The Emily Dickinson Journal<\/em> 9.2 (Fall 2001).<\/p>\n

\u201cPlace, Body and Spirit Joined: The Earth-Human Wound in Paradise Lost.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0Milton Quarterly<\/em> 35 (May 2001).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Other Self in a Reunified Germany: Reconsidering Peter Schneider\u2019s The\u00a0Wall Jumper.<\/em>\u201d The Journal of GLS<\/em> 6.2 (Spring 2001).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>Works in Progress<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/em><\/p>\n

Forward to Nature<\/em>\u00a0(book)<\/p>\n

On the Nature of Art<\/em> (book)<\/p>\n

“Dread in\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>”<\/p>\n

“Is Paradise Lost?”<\/p>\n

“Can Shakespeare Save the Planet?”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Popular Writing<\/em><\/p>\n

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Program notes for the opera\u00a0Seven Angels\u00a0<\/em>(libretto by\u00a0Glyn Maxwell), premiered July 2011, Royal Opera House, London.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Scholarly Talks\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cLooking Forward from Renaissance and the Environment,”\u00a0Saint Mark National University, Lima, Peru, December 2016<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, “The World in 2050: Creating\/Imagining Just Climate Futures,” UC Santa Barbara,\u00a0October 2106<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, “Climate Change: Views from the Humanities,”\u00a0UC Santa Barbara, May 2016<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker,\u00a0\u201cEpic Geographies,\u201d NYU, April 2016<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker,\u00a0\u201cWhy the Environmental Humanities Matter,\u201d Stony Brook University, February 2015<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker,\u00a0\u201dShould We Welcome the Anthropocene?\u201d UC Santa Barbara, October 2014.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cNature: How Much Does It Matter?\u201d Pomona College, September 2013.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker,\u00a0\u201dReconsidering Milton, Ecology, and Place,\u201d Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit\u00e4t, Munich, Germany, May 2013.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cReading the Renaissance, Greenly,\u201d\u00a0Sarah Lawrence College, April 2013.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cLooking Forward, Environmentally,\u201d\u00a0Boise State University, April 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cParadise Lost<\/em>\u00a02.0,\u201d 2013 Annual Renaissance Society of America Conference, San Diego, California, April 2013.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker,\u00a0\u201dThe Role of the Environmental Humanities in Our Future,\u201d\u00a0Princeton University, April\u00a02013<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker,\u00a0\u201dEnvironmental Criticism: What is at Stake?,\u201d University of Pennsylvania, April 2013.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cForward to Nature,\u201d\u00a0University of Oregon, March, 2013<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cThe Two Cultures in\u00a0Environmental\u00a0Studies,\u201d Princeton University,\u00a0February\u00a02013<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cAbandoning the Past, Toward a New Environmental Ethic,\u201d Rutgers University, December 2012<\/p>\n

\u201cDread in\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>,\u201d Tenth International Milton Symposium, Tokyo, Japan, August 2012.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cPutting Milton in the Cloud,\u201d University of\u00a0Alabama,\u00a0March 2012.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cRenaissance Texts in the Age of Digital Production,\u201d Harvard University,\u00a0February\u00a02012.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes Renaissance Ecocriticism Matter?\u201d\u00a02011 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2011.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cEnvironmental Writing in Early Modern England,\u201d Harvard University, April 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cSixteenth-Century Artisanal Practices and Baconian Prose,\u201d MLA, Los Angeles, CA, January 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading the Present in Our Environmental Past,\u201d MLA, Los Angeles, CA, January 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cRenaissance Air Pollution,\u201d 2010 Annual Renaissance Society of America Conference, Venice, Italy, April 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilton and Environmental Justice,\u201d 2009 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes This Place, This Earth, Really Matter?\u201d MLA, San Francisco, CA, December 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Milton and Seventeenth-Century Environmental Debates,\u201d Ninth International Milton Symposium, London, England, June 2008.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cWhat is Environmental Consciousness?\u201d University of Oregon, February 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Paradise Lost? John Milton and the Contemporary Christian Debate Over Global Warming,\u201d MLA, Chicago, IL, December 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Renaissance Origins of Our Contemporary Attitude Toward Air Pollution,\u201d 2007 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngland\u2019s First Levellers and Diggers,\u201d MLA, Philadelphia, PA, December 2006.<\/p>\n

Invited Speaker, \u201cEnvironmental Protest Literature of the Seventeenth Century,\u201d Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, February 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Else is Pastoral?\u201d 2005 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Belch\u2019d fire and rowling smoke\u2019: Air Pollution in Paradise Lost,\u201d Eighth International Milton Symposium, Grenoble, France, June 2005.<\/p>\n

Invited panelist, roundtable on \u201cEcocriticism and the Practice of Reading,\u201d sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Northeast MLA, Cambridge, MA, April 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpenser, Empire and Ecology,\u201d Conference on \u201cEnemies of Empire,\u201d University of Limerick, Ireland, June 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ecological Importance of Place in\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>,\u201d The International Milton Congress, Pittsburgh, PA, March 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cToni Morrison\u2019s Paradise and Exile in\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>,\u201d 2003 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading Julian of Norwich Greenly,\u201d Conference on \u201cEarly English Women Writers,\u201d Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cCon-fusing Paradise Regained,\u201d Seventh International Milton Symposium, Beaufort, SC, June 2002<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Panel Organizer (or co-organizer)<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Conference Panels Organized or Co-Organized (also see\u00a0Conferences Directed<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cJohn Milton: A General Session,\u201d MLA, Chicago, IL, January 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilton in the Long Restoration,\u201d MLA, Chicago, IL, January 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilton and Logic,\u201d MLA, Boston, MA, January 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Milton: A General Session,\u201d MLA, Boston, MA, January 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilton and Theatricality,\u201d MLA, Seattle, WA, January 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilton and Religion,\u201d MLA, Seattle, WA, January 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Milton: A General Session,\u201d MLA, Seattle, WA, January 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeasure and Measurement in the Age of Milton,\u201d MLA, Los Angeles, CA, January 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Milton: A General Session,\u201d MLA, Los Angeles, CA, January 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace and Place in Donne and Milton,\u201d MLA, Los Angeles, CA, January 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Milton: A General Session,\u201d MLA, Philadelphia, PA, December 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading Milton,\u201d MLA, Philadelphia, PA, December 2009.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Public Events<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

Invited speaker,\u00a0“Food and the Future, and\u00a0the Environment,”\u00a0Princeton Food Salon, April 2013<\/p>\n

Invited speaker,\u00a0“The Role of the Past in Our Environmental Future,” D&R Greenway Land Trust, Princeton, April 2013<\/p>\n

Invited speaker,\u00a0“Green Careers,” Princeton Public Library, January 2013<\/p>\n

Invited speaker,\u00a0“Books of the Future,” TEDx Talk, May 2012<\/p>\n

Invited speaker, “UCSB Reads,” Panel Discussion at the Santa Barbara Public Library,\u00a0February\u00a02012<\/p>\n

Love and Cruelty: Scenes from\u00a0Shakespeare\u00a0Selected and Performed by Harvard’s\u00a0English\u00a0Professors<\/em>,\u00a0Produced by Ken Hiltner, Harvard, April 2006<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Conferences<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

(Also see Panels Organized<\/a>)<\/p>\n

UCSB Conferences Organized<\/p>\n

2016-17, “The World in 2050: Creating\/Imagining Just Climate Futures: A Nearly Carbon-Neutral Conferenc<\/a>e”<\/p>\n

The most pressing existential issue of the 21st century for humanity as a whole is the increasingly grim reality of climate change and our entry into a new era in the history of humans and the planet well signified by the Anthropocene. The changing conditions of life on Earth lie at the center of a series of interconnected crises which include, among others, the precarity of the global economy, a widening deficit of political legitimacy, and cultures scarred by violence, from the most intimate interpersonal interactions to the most global realities of war-making.\u00a0Unlike either the justifiably pessimistic critical discussions or the unrealistically optimistic policy approaches that increasingly confront (or ignore) each other around the climate crisis, this conference will depart from our present ground zero by adopting perspectives of the multiple possible states of the world in mid-century and work back toward the present in an attempt to imagine, envision, enable, and collaboratively find or create some of the pathways to a far better \u2013 or just less worse \u2013 outcome for humanity by 2050.<\/p>\n

2015-16, “Climate Change: Views from the Humanities<\/a>: A Nearly Carbon-Neutral Conference<\/a>“<\/p>\n

This conference was unusual in two respects. First,\u00a0because it approached the issue of climate change from the perspective of the humanities, rather than, as might be expected, from that\u00a0of the sciences. Second, it was also more than a little unusual because of the conference format: it was an international academic\u00a0conference with over\u00a050 speakers from eight countries, yet it had a nearly nonexistent carbon footprint. Had this been a traditional fly-in conference, our slate of speakers would have had to collectively travel over 300,000 miles,\u00a0generating the equivalent of over\u00a0100,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the process. This is equal to the total annual carbon footprint of 50\u00a0people living in India, 165\u00a0in Kenya. A\u00a0conference that takes up the issue of climate change while simultaneously contributing to the problem to such a degree would be\u00a0simply unconscionable.\u00a0In contrast, we took a digital approach.\u00a0Because\u00a0the conference talks and Q&A sessions reside on this website (the talks are prerecorded; the Q&As interactive), travel was unnecessary.<\/p>\n

2010-11, “The Future of Literary Studies, 1500-1800” Conference<\/p>\n

In recent decades, scholars working in the early modern period have been at the vanguard\u00a0of literary studies. To cite just one example, some of the earliest practitioners of New\u00a0Historicism, such as Stephen Greenblatt and the late Richard Helgerson, worked in the\u00a0early modern period. The question we are contemplating this year is simple: where is\u00a0early modern studies headed? What’s next? Does the future lie in advancing or revisiting\u00a0existing approaches, such as still newer historicism, or something different altogether?\u00a0In addition to exploring this question theoretically, we are also interested in new\u00a0pedagogical and critical practices. \u00a0The conference will take place on March 11-12, 2011 at UCSB and features a constellation of keynote speakers including Helen Deutsch (UCLA), Jean Howard (Columbia), Heather James (USC), Leah Marcus (Vanderbilt), Stephen Orgel (Stanford), and Clifford Siskin (NYU).<\/p>\n

2009-10, \u201cLimits of the Human\u201d Winter Conference<\/p>\n

Cloning, organ farms, the completion of the Human Genome Project, recombinant DNA, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and other manufactured life forms, all suggest that, depending on one\u2019s point of view, the twenty-first century opens onto a horizon of radical possibilities for the future or cataclysmic end of what is meant by \u201chuman.\u201d UCSB\u2019s Early Modern Center Winter Conference, \u201cLimits of the Human,\u201d turns back to the early modern period to ask: before we were posthuman, how did we become human? How and why do early modern representations of hybrids, animals, monsters, anomalies, race, gender, and automata define what is human and separate out what is not? How do those things classified as non-human construct, reflect, or refract humanness? What innovations in technology, botany, labor equipment, law, and mathematical notation helped to calcify the boundaries of the human? How did Cartesian, Newtonian and Leibnizian systems of the world shape the conditions that Michel Foucault argues, \u201cmade it possible for the figure of man to appear\u201d? In what ways were the \u201climits\u201d always permeable, and how did they invite transgression and mutation? The EMC\u2019s one-day interdisciplinary conference provides a forum to explore early modern literary and cultural responses to the issues and questions that helped delineate the limits of being human.The conference will consist of panel discussions, as well as keynote talks by Bruce Smith (Dean’s Professor of English, University of Southern California) and Richard Nash (Professor of English, Indiana University).<\/span><\/p>\n

2008-09, Bliss-Zimmerman Spring Lecture<\/p>\n

On May 15, Angus Fletcher will present a talk entitled “Poetry, Environment, and the Protected Circle of Wonder.” Fletcher is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York Graduate School, author of\u00a0A New Theory for American Poetry: Democracy, the Environment, and the Future of Imagination.<\/em> According to Jonathan Bate, “Angus Fletcher is a highly distinguished critic and his New Theory for American Poetry is an appropriately distinguished contribution to the new wave of literary theory that restores the imagination, the aesthetic, the emotions and the natural world to critical discourse.” Harold Bloom says, “Angus Fletcher and his work have strongly influenced the way I read poetry\u2026His new book is the crown of his career: bold, original, brimming with imaginative energy on every page.”<\/p>\n

2008-09, \u201cBefore Environmentalism\u201d Winter Conference<\/p>\n

In recent years, scholars have looked to the Renaissance and eighteenth century in order to better understand both the origins of our contemporary environmental crisis, as well as the emergence of modern environmental thinking. Works such as Robert Watson’s\u00a0Back to Nature: The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance<\/em> and Gabriel Egan’s\u00a0Green Shakespeare: From Ecopolitics to Ecocriticism<\/em>, have brought early modern literary studies into current ecocritical debate. As these and other works make clear, environmental issues such as air pollution, toxic waste, increased urbanization, deforestation, wetland loss, and radical changes in land use were surprisingly timely in Early Modern England, routinely making their appearance in the literature of the day. Indeed, by the time Milton was writing Paradise Lost it was already known that respiratory illness from urban air pollution was second only to the Plague as the leading cause of death in London. The EMC’s one-day interdisciplinary conference will provide a forum to explore early modern literary and cultural responses to the environmental issues that preceded, and indeed gave shape to, modern environmentalism.<\/p>\n

The conference will consist of panel discussions, as well as keynote talks by Carolyn Merchant (Professor of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley) and Jill Casid (Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the Visual Culture Studies Program, University of Wisconsin).<\/p>\n

2008-09, Early Modern Center Fall Colloquium<\/p>\n

This year’s EMC Fall Colloquium will feature speakers Professor Robert Watson and Professor Beth Fowkes Tobin, both of whom will present work that illuminates this year’s theme, “Before Environmentalism.” The Colloquium will take place in the McCune Conference Room in the HSSB at UCSB from 1:00-4:00.<\/p>\n

Robert N. Watson is a Professor of English at UCLA, and author of\u00a0Back to Nature: The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance<\/em> (Pennsylvania UP, 2006), named the Best Book of Ecocriticism of 2005-2006 by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. He was the winner of the 2006 Elizabeth Dietz Memorial Prize for the year’s best book in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, by the editors of Studies in English Literature. Professor Watson’s presentation for this EMC event is entitled “The Ecology of Self in ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.'”<\/p>\n

Beth Fowkes Tobin is a Professor of English at Arizona State University, and the author of\u00a0Colonizing Nature: The Tropics in British Arts and Letters, 1760-1820<\/em> (Pennsylvania UP, 2005) and\u00a0Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting<\/em> (Duke UP, 1999). Professor Tobin’s presentation for the Colloquium is entitled “The Duchess’s Shells: Natural History Collecting, Gender, and Scientific Practice.”<\/p>\n

2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11,\u00a0EMC Undergraduate Conferences<\/p>\n

These conferences are a forum showcasing outstanding undergraduate work on the early modern period.<\/p>\n

Princeton Conference Organised<\/p>\n

2012-13, “The\u00a0Environmental\u00a0Humanities\u00a0in a Changing World<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

When environmental studies programs first began appearing in American universities over forty years ago, interest in the subject came almost exclusively from the sciences. Today, however, the situation is very different, as concern for environmental issues has now also swept across the humanities, impacting the study of literature, art, music, history, religion, philosophy, and much, much more. Moreover, poets, novelists, photographers, playwrights, performers, and a variety of additional artists are now producing works reflecting and commenting upon our present environmental situation. This two-day conference not only brings together leaders from a range of fields in the environmental humanities, but also prominent artists producing work with environmental import. The goal is to both provide succinct overviews of these fields and introduction to this art, as well as to consider how these various approaches can work together for the future of our planet.<\/p>\n

Harvard Conferences Organized<\/p>\n

2003-04, \u201cThe Worldly Earth: An Ecological Conference\u201d<\/p>\n

In Old English our word “world” (weorold<\/em>) originally meant an “age (old<\/em>) of humanity (weor<\/em>).” As such, a world is a human culture situated historically upon the planet earth; it is not the earth itself. In recent decades, the Humanities have been sweepingly reinvented by way of critical approaches focusing on contexts that are–in precisely this original sense–largely “worldly.” Though the fact that culture has come out of the margins of academic discourse is no doubt positive, what effect might this fascination with our worlds have on the earth? For example: Does a worldly critical approach, which returns traditional pastoral art to its historic context, work positively to reveal that these representations of the earth are far worldlier than we might have ever imagined? Or, alternately, does this privileging of the worldly neglect, perhaps even obscure, the manner by which place directly informs art? And just why are we so interested in our worlds alone; are not the very practices that we share also shaped by the earth? On the subject of shared practices, just how do human worlds rest upon the earthly places we inhabit; softly, gently following every contour, or boldly, land-scaping the earth into an image of that world? In short, with these questions and others, this conference considers how fascination with the worldly–now the common interest influencing methodologies across the Humanities–has impacted the earth.<\/p>\n

2004-05, Renaissance Colloquium<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

<\/a>UCSB Courses<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

(Note: Student feedback on these courses can be found here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Fall 2017, Eng 22 Intro to the Environmental Humanities<\/em><\/p>\n

This large lecture is a revised version of Eng 22 <\/em>(Intro to Literature and the\u00a0Environment, see below) that now provides a general introduction to the environmental humanities.<\/p>\n

Fall\u00a02017, Eng 122EA Environmental Activism and its Rhetoric<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Summer 2017, INT 133B What\u2019s Wrong with the World? How Do We Fix It?<\/em>\u2028\u00a0<\/em>Perspectives and Solutions from the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Co-taught with a sociology professor,\u00a0this course investigates the future, asking what might the world look like in the year 2050? What will be the state of climate change? What will schools, cities, agriculture, jobs, nations, energy sources, technology, political systems, international relations, the global and local economy, and much more look like? How will people make sense and meaning of their world? What future worlds can we foresee from where we are now, ranging widely and wildly from the awful to the utopian? How will we get to the better worlds we hope to be living in?\u00a0Starting with the current political, economic, cultural, and climate crises of Earth and humanity, we consider alternatives to the present system — sustainable development, degrowth, transition towns, resilience — and our roles in building a far better world by 2050. We will also consider the ways that climate change is being fiercely debated on the public stage through a careful look at the rhetoric of these debates.<\/p>\n

Summer\u00a02017, Eng 122EA Environmental Activism and its Rhetoric<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Summer 2017,\u00a0Eng 122CC The Rhetoric of Climate Change<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Winter 2017, Eng 122EA Environmental Activism and its Rhetoric<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an experiment. It begins with the assumption that the causes of global climate change are indeed anthropogenic (i.e. human caused). Consequently, solutions will need to come from human beings as well. The difficulty is not only that a broad swathe of Americans deny that our climate is changing, even if this is acknowledged, the causes and solutions to the problem are being fiercely debated on the public stage. It has also, sadly, become a political issue dividing our nation. This course will carefully look at the rhetoric of these debates. Together, we will piece together and analyze contemporary political and environmental discourses to begin addressing this rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Winter 2017, INT 33G Brave New World? Perspectives on Gene Manipulation<\/em><\/p>\n

Co-taught with a molecular biologist, this course considers the moral and environmental implications of gene manipulation.<\/p>\n

Fall\u00a02016,\u00a0Eng 122CC The Rhetoric of Climate Change<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Fall 2016 Eng 22 Intro to Literature and the\u00a0Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

Starting with one of the West\u2019s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh,<\/em> this course explores the literary history of the natural world. This course is a revised version of Eng\/ES 122LE <\/em>that now meets the requirements of the UCSB General Education program.<\/p>\n

Winter\u00a02016,\u00a0Eng 122CC The Rhetoric of Climate Change<\/em><\/p>\n

Debates about global climate change put into conflict science, politics, and our narrative practices. This is perhaps unsurprising given that climate science (which utilizes complex modeling techniques to analyze temporally and globally diffuse data sets) rhetorically constructs both catastrophic and inhabitable futures. This course will examine these rhetorics and utilize literary methodologies to investigate their imagined futures. To do so, we will begin with a brief survey of both scientific and cultural representations of climate change. This opening will prepare us to investigate a particular strain of the climate change debate: denialism. Rather than surveying arguments against climate change, we will analyze some of the tropes most frequently used in denial literature. The goal is not only to understand the implicit narrativization of climate change, but to assess how humanistic methodologies can contribute to these debates and contribute to imagining different futures.<\/p>\n

Fall 2015 Eng 22 Intro to Literature and the\u00a0Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Summer 2015 Eng 22 Intro to Literature and the\u00a0Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Spring 2015 Eng 22 Intro to Literature and the\u00a0Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Fall 2014, Eng 199\/99\u00a0The Rhetoric of the Anthropocene and Climate Change<\/em><\/p>\n

Scientists have suggested that the earth has recently entered a new geological\u00a0epoch, the Anthropocene, which has been caused by sweeping changes that human\u00a0beings have brought about on the planet, climate change being the most notable.\u00a0At first glance, the Anthropocene may seem to be something that can only be\u00a0studied by scientists; however, scholars from across the humanities are trying\u00a0to understand the human implications of the Anthropocene, such as how it will\u00a0change our lives, values, and understanding of our place on the planet, as well\u00a0as why so many individuals are currently denying that it and climate change are\u00a0real.\u00a0Throughout the 2014-15 academic year, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center\u00a0will be bringing a range of experts from across the country to the UCSB campus\u00a0to consider the Anthropocene from the perspective of the humanities.\u00a0A unique undergraduate course has been created around this talk series. This\u00a0course – which is the first of its kind and which will be taught across the\u00a0Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters of the 2014-15 academic year \u2013 will allow a\u00a0small group of students to attend these talks, meet with the speakers, and take\u00a0part in post-talk discussions, which will be led by the Director of UCSB\u2019s\u00a0Environmental Humanities Center, Professor Ken Hiltner.<\/p>\n

Summer 2014,\u00a0Engl 162\u00a0Milton\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Summer 2014,\u00a0Engl 101\u00a0English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Spring 2014, Engl 198<\/span><\/p>\n

Honors Seminar.<\/p>\n

Winter 2014, Engl 162\u00a0Milton\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This course considers a range of Milton’s works, including\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>\u00a0(arguably the finest long poem in the English language) and\u00a0Paradise Regained<\/em>. Just for fun, we will look at excerpts from two popular series of books influenced by\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>:\u00a0The Chronicles of Narnia\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0His Dark Materials<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fall 2013,\u00a0Engl 101\u00a0English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

Fall 2013, Eng 22\u00a0<\/span>Intro to Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

This course surveys nearly 5000 thousand years of literature in order to explore the literary history of our relationship with the earth, as well as to better understand our current environmental beliefs. This course is completely open-access, including lectures, the Course Reader, and additional material (website<\/a>; online discussions<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Summer 2013,\u00a0Engl 101\u00a0English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650<\/em><\/p>\n

See below description.<\/p>\n

(Note: for 2012-13, see Princeton Courses<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Summer 2012,\u00a0Engl 101\u00a0English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s\u00a0Poems<\/em>. After surveying some very early works, such as the\u00a0Dream of the Rood<\/em>, we will read\u00a0Beowulf<\/em>, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from\u00a0Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/em>\u00a0and Chaucer’s\u00a0The Canterbury Tales<\/em>\u00a0before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath\u2019s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the\u00a0Dream of the Rood<\/em>, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?<\/p>\n

Spring 2012, Engl 162\u00a0Milton\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In this course we will consider a range of Milton’s works, including Paradise Lost<\/em> and Paradise Regained<\/em>. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em> by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials<\/em>, especially The Golden Compass<\/em>, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, “His Dark Materials” is a quote from Paradise Lost<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Spring 2012, Engl 231\u00a0Milton and His Contemporaries<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition to providing a comprehensive introduction to Milton’s poetry and prose, this graduate seminar also covers most of the seventeenth-century works on the First Qualifying Exam for Renaissance<\/p>\n

Fall 2011, Engl\/ES 122LE\u00a0Introduction to Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh<\/em>, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.<\/p>\n

Fall 2011,\u00a0Engl\/ES 100LE Honors Seminar for Engl\/ES 122LE<\/p>\n

An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng\/ES 122LE (above) for particularly motivated students.\u00a0 Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing. \u00a0Cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.<\/p>\n

Fall 2011, Engl 165RD\u00a0How to Read a Book<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is a survey of literary theory.<\/p>\n

Spring 2011, Engl 165EM What Else is Pastoral? Renaissance Literature and the Environment<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Of all the different ways of writing, pastoral may be the most versatile–as well as most misunderstood and overlooked. Pastoral can be lighthearted fun (as in Shakespeare\u2019s\u00a0As You Like It<\/em>), scathing, subversive, and dangerous political allegory (as it was for poet Edmund Spenser), astonishingly beautiful nature writing (such as the description of Eden in Milton\u2019s\u00a0Paradise Lost)<\/em>, or any number of other forms. In fact, pastoral can take nearly any shape: a play, a lyric poem, an epic, a novel, even a song or film. In this course we will be tracing this remarkable mode of writing from its earliest beginnings to its height in the Renaissance and 18th century, while also considering how it is still very much at work in the world today. (Course Homepage<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Fall 2010, Engl\/ES 122LE Introduction to Literature and the Environment<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.\u00a0(Course Homepage<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Fall 2010, Engl\/ES 100LE Honors Seminar for Engl\/ES 122LE<\/p>\n

An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng\/ES 122LE (above) for particularly motivated students.\u00a0 Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing. \u00a0Cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.\u00a0(See Engl\/ES 122LE Homepage<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Winter 2010, Engl 165EM Early Modern Limits of the Human<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Cloning, organ farms, the completion of the Human Genome Project, recombinant DNA, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and other manufactured life forms, all suggest that, depending on one\u2019s point of view, the twenty-first century opens onto a horizon of radical possibilities for the future or cataclysmic demise of the human. Our course takes the 2009-2010 Early Modern Center Theme, \u201cThe Limits of the Human,\u201d to turn back to the early modern period and ask: before we were posthuman, how did we become human? How do early modern representations of monsters, anomalies, race, gender, automata define what is human and separate out what is not? What innovations in technology, botany, labor equipment, law, and mathematical notation helped to calcify the boundaries of the human? How did Cartesian, Newtonian and Leibnizian systems of the world shape the conditions that Michel Foucault argues, \u201cmade it possible for the figure of man to appear?\u201d In what ways were the \u201climits\u201d always permeable and did they invite transgression and mutation? We will use this course as a forum to explore these and many other questions relevant to\u00a0 the historical formation of the category: human.\u00a0(Course Homepage<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Fall 2009, Engl 236 Theories of Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and “green” criticism (especially in the UK), is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. In the first half of this course we will explore how the relationship between human beings and the environment has been imagined in the West, especially as it appears in the works of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Levinas, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, and Agamben. Withal, we will be considering how these attitudes toward the environment influenced writers such as Theocritus, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and so forth. The second half of the course will consider works from modern ecocritics (beginning in the 1960s and ’70s with Lynn White Jr., Leo Marx, Carolyn Merchant, Keith Thomas, and Raymond Williams, and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century) with an eye to directly applying this theory to the reading of texts.<\/p>\n

Fall 2009, Engl 197 Theories of Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an honors undergraduate version of the graduate seminar Eng 236 (see above).<\/p>\n

Fall-Spring 2009, Engl 595EM Early Modern Center Colloquium<\/em><\/p>\n

Extending over three quarters, this tutorial gives graduate students interested in literature from the period 1500-1800 an opportunity to discuss and workshop their current research.<\/p>\n

Winter 2009, Engl 122EN Introduction to Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).<\/p>\n

Winter 2009, Engl 100EN Honors Seminar for Engl 122EN<\/em><\/p>\n

An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 122LE (above) for particularly motivated students.\u00a0 Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.<\/p>\n

Winter 2009, Engl 231 Milton and Ecology<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition to providing a introduction to Milton’s poetry and prose, as well as covering most of the 17th<\/sup>-century works on the First Qualifying Exam for Renaissance, this course (not surprisingly) approaches Milton’s major works ecocritically.Winter 2009 Engl 231\u00a0Milton and Ecology<\/p>\n

Fall-Spring 2008, Engl 595EM Early\u00a0Modern Center Colloquium<\/em><\/p>\n

Extending over three quarters, this tutorial gives graduate students interested in literature from the period 1500-1800 an opportunity to discuss and workshop their current research.<\/p>\n

Spring 2008, Engl 122EN\u00a0Introduction to Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).<\/p>\n

Spring 2008, Engl 100EN Honors Seminar for Engl 122EN<\/em><\/p>\n

An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 122EN (above) for particularly motivated students.\u00a0 Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.<\/p>\n

Spring 2008, Engl 162 Milton and Ecology<\/em><\/p>\n

When confronted with the description of a literal dark cloud of air pollution hanging over Coketown in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times<\/em>, many readers are immediately persuaded not only that our current environmental crisis has its roots in the nineteenth century, but that it was clearly making its appearance in the literature of the day. However, turn the clock back two centuries, to Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton, and many of the same readers are remarkably resistant to the notion that the roots of the crisis could reach back so far–at least with respect to issues such as urban air pollution. Nonetheless, air pollution, acid rain, deforestation, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism were all issues of great concern in Renaissance England. In this course we will consider a range of Milton’s works, including Paradise Lost<\/em>, against the backdrop of these environmental issues. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two very popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em> by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials<\/em>, especially The Golden Compass<\/em>, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, “His Dark Materials” is a quote from Paradise Lost<\/em>.) This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).<\/p>\n

Winter 2008, Engl 101 English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems<\/em>. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood<\/em>, we will read Beowulf<\/em>, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/em> and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales<\/em> before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath\u2019s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood<\/em>, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?<\/p>\n

Winter 2008, Engl 236 Theories of Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and “green” criticism (especially in the UK), is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. In the first half of this course we will explore how the relationship between human beings and the environment has been imagined in the West, especially as it appears in the works of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Levinas, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, and Agamben. Withal, we will be considering how these attitudes toward the environment influenced writers such as Theocritus, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and so forth. The second half of the course will consider works from modern ecocritics (beginning in the 1960s and ’70s with Lynn White Jr., Leo Marx, Carolyn Merchant, Keith Thomas, and Raymond Williams, and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century) with an eye to directly applying this theory to the reading of texts.<\/p>\n

Winter 2007, Engl 165MP Renaissance Pastoral<\/em><\/p>\n

Of all the different ways of writing, pastoral may be the most versatile–and most misunderstood and overlooked. Pastoral can be lighthearted fun (as in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which we will be reading), scathing, subversive, and dangerous political allegory (as it was for poet Edmund Spenser), astonishingly beautiful nature writing (such as the description of Eden in Milton’s Paradise Lost), or any number of other forms. In fact, pastoral can take nearly any shape: a play, a lyric poem, an epic, a novel, or even a film. In this course we will be tracing this remarkable mode of writing from its earliest beginnings to its height in the Renaissance, while also considering how it is still very much at work in the world today.<\/p>\n

Winter 2007, Engl 197 Metaphysical Poets<\/em><\/p>\n

A generation after Shakespeare, a group of brash young poets boldly set out to reinvent English literature. Arguing that poetry had become boring and bloated\u2014an endless, mindless repetition of classical references and tired themes\u2014they attempted to shock the world with something entirely new. And shock it they did. When writing about love, for example, they not only penned some of the most beautiful poetry that has ever been written, but they did so openly and audaciously: in a single poem John Donne not only unflinchingly gave our words “sex” and “ecstasy” their modern meanings, but forever yoked the two. This course will introduce the major themes of the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Vaughan, and others.<\/p>\n

Fall 2006, Engl 122EN Ecocriticism and the Writing of Nature<\/em><\/p>\n

This course is an ecological survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, ecological critics (or simply “ecocritics”) explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures; they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand contemporary America\u2019s attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West\u2019s earliest texts, The Myth of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.<\/p>\n

Fall 2006, Engl 231 Milton and His Contemporaries<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition to providing a comprehensive introduction to Milton’s poetry and prose, this course also covers most of the seventeenth-century works on the First Qualifying Exam for Renaissance<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Princeton Courses\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Fall 2012, English\/Environmental Studies 386,\u00a0Literature and Environment<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Beginning with\u00a0The Epic of Gilgamesh<\/em>, one of the West\u2019s earliest texts, this course surveys nearly 5000 thousand years of literature in order to explore the literary history of the relationship we have with our planet, as well as to better understand our current environmental beliefs.\u00a0(Course website<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Spring 2013,\u00a0Environmental Studies\/English 388,\u00a0Theories of\u00a0Literature and Environment.<\/em><\/p>\n

Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and \u201cgreen\u201d criticism, is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. This course explores a range of works from modern environmental critics, beginning in the 1960s and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st\u00a0century.\u00a0(Course website<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Harvard Courses\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Spring 2006,\u00a0Major British Writers II<\/em><\/p>\n

An introduction to the study of British literature from the early 18th century to the present.<\/p>\n

Spring 2006,\u00a0Major British Writers I<\/em><\/p>\n

A survey of English literature that includes Beowulf,\u00a0Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/em>, Chaucer, Mystery plays, Spenser, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Webster, Lanyer, Herbert, Vaughan, Herrick, Marvell, Milton and others.<\/p>\n

Fall 2005,\u00a0Milton:\u00a0Major Poetry and Prose<\/em><\/p>\n

A comprehensive study of Milton\u2019s career. We will concentrate on his poetry (lyric, dramatic, and epic) but will also pay close attention to his major prose tracts.\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>\u00a0will receive extended treatment.<\/p>\n

Spring 2005,\u00a0Metaphysics of the Metaphysical Poets<\/em><\/p>\n

A course on the major lyric poets of the 17th century, Donne, Jonson, Herbert, and Marvell. What is the relation between poetry and philosophy, between lyric expression and permanent order? In the seventeenth century, medieval notions of order gave way before the rise of science and of early modern philosophy. One result of these changes was the emergence of a new individualism in poetry.<\/p>\n

Fall 2004,\u00a0Major British Writers I<\/em><\/p>\n

An introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature through the reading of major works from the Anglo-Saxon beginnings to Shakespeare\u2019s plays and\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

<\/a>Individual Teaching\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

I\u00a0often volunteer to work with students on a variety of independent projects, sometimes more than a dozen per year. These projects have proven especially rewarding\u2014in many respects even more so than my regular teaching\u2014as they allowed me to individually mentor especially dedicated students.\u00a0 My philosophy on individual projects is simple: if a student is dedicated enough to take on (and stick with) the extra work of an independent study, I am happy to work with them. All Independent Teaching is at UCSB and extends over at least one term.<\/p>\n

\n

Eng 99,\u00a0Introduction to Research in English<\/em> (14 directed). Independent research under the guidance of a faculty member in the department. Course offers exceptional students the opportunity to undertake independent research or work in a research group.<\/p>\n

Eng 199,\u00a0Undergraduate Independent Study\u00a0<\/em>(34 directed). Intended for qualified undergraduate students who wish to pursue a directed and advanced study of a particular subject in British literature.<\/p>\n

Eng 196,\u00a0Undergraduate Honors Thesis\u00a0<\/em>(4 directed). The Honors Program in English provides the opportunity for qualified majors to undertake advanced literary research, culminating in an Honors Thesis.<\/p>\n

College of Letters and Sciences Undergraduate Honors Contract<\/em>\u00a0(3 directed). With faculty approval, upper-division College Honors Program students may design their own honors contracts, and have special research opportunities available to them.<\/p>\n

Eng 195i,\u00a0Undergraduate Internship<\/em>\u00a0(1 directed). Under the direct supervision of an English Department faculty member, English majors may obtain credit for work with or without pay in publishing, editing, journalism, or other employment related to English literature.<\/p>\n

Eng 10EM,\u00a0Graduate Teaching Mentoring<\/em>\u00a0(10 coordinated). \u00a0Acquaints students with purposes and tools of literary interpretation. Introduces techniques and vocabulary of analytic discussion and critical writing. Emphasis is on early modern studies.<\/p>\n

Eng 596,\u00a0Graduate Individual Research Project<\/em>\u00a0(3 directed). Intended for qualified graduate students who wish to pursue a directed and advanced study of a particular subject in British literature.<\/p>\n

Eng 597, Graduate Qualifying Exam Preparation<\/em>\u00a0(15 directed). Individual mentoring and preparation for the First Qualifying Examination in English.<\/p>\n

M.A. Committees, served on 15 committees.<\/p>\n

Ph.D. Committees, served on 8 committees.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Teaching Initiatives\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

2009-10 Led the effort to develop the Early Modern Center\u2019s undergraduate course, English 165EMC<\/p>\n

2008-09 Developed new format graduate course, English 595\u00a0EMC Colloquium<\/em><\/p>\n

2007-08 Developed the large lecture, English 122EN:\u00a0Introduction to the Study of Literature and the Environment<\/em><\/p>\n

2007-08 Led the effort to create the Department\u2019s Graduate First Qualifying Exam in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

2006-08 Led the effort to create the Department\u2019s Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Teaching\u00a0Philosophy\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n

My father was a furniture-maker, a woodworker. Like the children of many artisans, I was informally apprenticed into the trade at a very young age, about the time I started school. Consequently, I simultaneously experienced two approaches to learning. Although it did not register with me at the time, over the years I slowly came to realize (especially after reading a range of theorists from Martin Heidegger to Michael Polanyi and Pierre Bourdieu) that the knowledge taught in the classroom is very different than that possessed by the artisan. The latter exists largely – sometimes only – in practice, through practice. \u00a0As a consequence, being mostly bodily, it is more a \u201cknowing how,\u201d a savoir faire<\/em>, than the sort of intangible, movable knowledge that theorists have been pondering and prizing since Plato. Perhaps nowhere is the difference clearer than in the process whereby one learns to know how to perform a skill, such as cutting a dovetail joint in wood. As a child, I watched as my father performed this skill dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times before ever attempting it myself. \u00a0In fact, it was years before I was even permitted to pick up a dovetail saw. Instead, I slowly took the process in; even more slowly, I learned the skill of handling a saw in simpler joints.<\/p>\n

It was not until some years later when I started college (where I began reflecting on the process of education itself) that I surprisingly noticed an instructor attempting something akin to apprenticeship in the classroom. Rather than attempting to teach any sort of particular knowledge about the texts at hand, she modeled how she read these books, encouraging students to learn how to do the same. While the work of reading is, of course, very different than that of working wood, I quickly saw a parallel here, noting the merits of apprenticing students into the skill of active reading and reflection, rather than just attempting to teach ideas contained in, or facts about, the text at hand.\u00a0 Of course, as teachers, we do that as well, but I have come to realize that teaching how<\/em> to read is in many respects as important as teaching what<\/em> we read. My goal is to teach both.<\/p>\n

Regarding how I go about that,\u00a0I often create handouts containing very detailed study questions, which students are required to work through, either on their own or in small groups, in preparation for class.\u00a0 For example, in my undergraduate course on Milton, I put together a dozen worksheets (one for each book of Paradise Lost<\/em>), each containing ten or fifteen detailed questions, which generally move chronologically through the text, often referencing specific lines of the epic.\u00a0 The idea is to have students, either working individually or in a group (depending on how I have structured that particular course), directly wrestle with important passages in the text, as well as key ideas.\u00a0 For example, I have found that it is far more effective to ask questions about gender in Paradise Lost<\/em> after students have first looked to relevant passages, as they then develop ideas and opinions that are firmly grounded in the text.<\/p>\n

Newer technology can also help here.\u00a0Course websites, for example, are an excellent way to not only aggregate course material (such as assignments and syllabi), but can also allow the course to take place partly online. Blogs in particular can considerably enrich the classroom experience.\u00a0 For example, in a number of my courses I have students break into small teams of two or three in order to prepare a joint presentation. A few days in advance of the actual classroom presentation, the team posts a written version of it to our course blog.\u00a0 Every other member of the class then comments on the entry online.\u00a0 By the time class rolls around, discussion tends to be very lively, as everyone in the course has had time to engage with, and even debate online, the ideas at hand.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that both in my writing and research, I stress inclusiveness.\u00a0 Nearly every course that I teach includes works by women (such as 17th-century writers Aemilia Lanyer and Katherine Philips) and working-class writers (like Milton\u2019s contemporary Gerrard Winstanley), as well as non-canonical texts like ballads.\u00a0 I also believe that it is useful to consider certain texts, such as the Faerie Queene,<\/em>\u00a0from a postcolonial perspective and additional vantage points, such as that of environmental justice, which takes into account factors like race, gender, and class. Nonetheless, although I teach texts as cultural artifacts that provide windows into these issues, I also stress that they are\u00a0aesthetic objects to enjoy.<\/p>\n

Finally, one of the reasons that I find this profession\u00a0so rewarding is that\u00a0few\u00a0endeavors reward an investment of time like teaching. A fifteen-minute meeting with a student, for example, takes an embarrassingly small amount of time, yet those few minutes provide a wonderful opportunity to\u00a0get to know students, their interests, and their reasons for taking (as well as concerns regarding) the course, as well as to get feedback on what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not. Even more importantly, it is one of the first steps in establishing an important relationship that may last for a number of courses, or even years or decades.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Non-University Service\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

(Also see Panels Organized<\/a>\u00a0and Conferences Directed<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Non-University Organizations<\/p>\n

2010-15, Secretary of the Milton Society of America<\/p>\n

In 2010, I accepted a five-year appointment as the Secretary\u00a0of the Milton Society of America. It was a bit of a daunting job, especially as the former MSA Secretary (the late Albert Labriola) served in the post for 35 years, but I very much enjoyed helping to lead the Society, which has over 500 members from over ten nations,\u00a0into its seventh decade. A range of scholars, including\u00a0C. S. Lewis, Merritt Hughes, Northrop Frye, and Stanley Fish, have been members over the years. One of my first projects was authoring a long overdue website for the MSA<\/p>\n

2008-10, Member, Executive Committee, Milton Society of America<\/p>\n

2011-Present,\u00a0Board Member,\u00a0Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies<\/em>, Duquesne University Press<\/p>\n

2006-Present, Member, Modern Language Association<\/span><\/p>\n

2012-Present,\u00a0Member, Renaissance Society of America<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

Selected Refereeing<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Presses<\/p>\n

Oxford University Press<\/p>\n

Cambridge\u00a0University Press<\/p>\n

University of Toronto Press<\/p>\n

Duquesne University Press<\/p>\n

Routledge<\/p>\n

Journals<\/p>\n

Milton Studies<\/em><\/p>\n

Milton Quarterly<\/em><\/p>\n

Environmental Humanities<\/em><\/p>\n

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment <\/em><\/p>\n

Bronte Studies<\/em><\/p>\n

Outside Reviewer for Tenure and Promotion Cases<\/p>\n

Various<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>UCSB Service\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

(Also see Conferences Directed<\/a>)<\/p>\n

2015-16<\/p>\n

Director, Environmental Humanities\u00a0Initiative<\/p>\n

Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB<\/p>\n

Co-Coordinator, Critical Issues in American Series<\/p>\n

Supervisor, King\u00a0Promotion Case<\/p>\n

Member, Undergraduate Committee<\/p>\n

2014-15<\/p>\n

Director, Environmental Humanities\u00a0Initiative<\/p>\n

Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB<\/p>\n

Chair, Hiring Committee for literature and the environment\u00a0position<\/p>\n

Campus\u00a0Sustainability Champion<\/p>\n

Member, Undergraduate Committee<\/p>\n

2013-14<\/p>\n

Member, Undergraduate Committee<\/p>\n

Supervisor, Shrewy Promotion Case<\/p>\n

Member, Hiring Committee for 18th Century position<\/p>\n

Member, Hiring Committee for the Dehlsen Chair in Environmental Studies<\/p>\n

Member, Graduate Division Central Continuing Fellowship Awards Committee<\/p>\n

2012-13<\/p>\n

On Leave of Absence as a visiting professor at Princeton University<\/p>\n

2011-12<\/p>\n

Member, Undergraduate Committee<\/p>\n

Supervisor, Shrewy Promotion Case<\/p>\n

2010-11<\/p>\n

Director of Graduate Studies, English Department<\/p>\n

Chair, Graduate Steering Committee<\/p>\n

Chair, Graduate Admissions Committee<\/p>\n

Member, English Department Administrative Committee<\/p>\n

Director, Early Modern Center at UCSB<\/p>\n

Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Early Modern Undergraduate Specialization<\/p>\n

Member, Graduate Division Central New Admits Fellowship Awards Committee<\/p>\n

Supervisor, Cook Promotion Case<\/p>\n

2009-10<\/p>\n

Director of Graduate Studies, English Department<\/p>\n

Administratively, one of the most challenging of my duties at UCSB was as Graduate Chair (a.k.a. Director of Graduate Studies, DGS) from 2008-11, which, while enormously gratifying, was made difficult by widespread budget cuts throughout the UC system. I am pleased to report that the program continued to thrive during that time, in part because we\u00a0aggressively and successfully competed for a variety of funding, which allowed us to\u00a0bring exceptionally qualified students to UCSB by offering\u00a0especially\u00a0desirable admission packages at a time when many Ph.D. programs were reducing theirs. During my time as\u00a0DGS, I put together some advice for Ph.D. candidates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Member, English Department Administrative Committee<\/p>\n

Director, Early Modern Center at UCSB<\/p>\n

Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Early Modern Undergraduate Specialization<\/p>\n

Supervisor, Shrewy Promotion Case<\/p>\n

2008-09<\/p>\n

Director, Early Modern Center at UCSB<\/p>\n

From 2008-2011, I was Director of UCSB\u2019s Early Modern Center (EMC). I very much enjoyed the challenges that came with taking the EMC into its second decade as an internationally recognized center for early modern studies.\u00a0Full information on the EMC\u2019s projects, initiatives, and events can be found at our website, which we gave a major overhaul during my first year as EMC Director. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Director of Graduate Studies, English Department<\/p>\n

Member, English Department Administrative Committee<\/p>\n

Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Early Modern Undergraduate Specialization<\/p>\n

Member, Hiring Committee for Renaissance Drama position<\/p>\n

Member, Graduate Division Central New Admits Fellowship Awards Committee<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Graduate Colloquium in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

2007-08<\/p>\n

Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB<\/p>\n

Ever since arriving at UCSB, quite a bit of my energy has gone into helping to introduce one of my greatest passions, ecocriticism, to the campus. From 2007-11, I was the inaugural Director of our Literature & Environment Initiative. During that time we created a \u201cTheories of L&E\u201d list for our First Qualifying Exam (click here<\/a> for the history of this list), an\u00a0Undergraduate Specialization in L&E, as well as a range of additional programing and events.\u00a0While proud of all our accomplishments, I take greatest delight in the fact that the classes in which my students and I approach a variety of familiar texts from an ecocritical perspective have been well received at UCSB.<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

Coordinator, Graduate Colloquium in Literature and the Environment<\/p>\n

Member, Hiring Committee for Literature and the Environment position<\/p>\n

Member, Graduate Division Central Continuing Fellowship Awards Committee<\/p>\n

Member, Making Publics Group<\/p>\n

Member, English Department Graduate Committee<\/p>\n

2006-07<\/p>\n

Co-Coordinator, Hannah Arendt Reading Group<\/p>\n

Member, Making Publics Group<\/p>\n

Member, English Department Graduate Committee<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Princeton Service<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

(Also see\u00a0Conferences Directed<\/a>)<\/p>\n

2012-13, Contributed to the development of the Environmental Humanities website.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Harvard Service\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

(Also see\u00a0Conferences Directed<\/a>)<\/p>\n

2005-06<\/p>\n

Chair, Graduate Advisory Committee to the English Department<\/p>\n

Member, Renaissance Colloquium<\/p>\n

Member, Humanities Center Advisory Committee<\/p>\n

2004-05<\/p>\n

Chair, Renaissance Colloquium<\/p>\n

Member, Graduate Advisory Committee to the English Department<\/p>\n

Member, Humanities Center Advisory Committee<\/p>\n

2003-04<\/p>\n

Member, Renaissance Colloquium<\/p>\n

Member, Humanities Center Advisory Committee<\/p>\n

2002-03<\/p>\n

Member, Renaissance Colloquium<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Degrees & Appointments\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Degrees (B.A., M.A., A.M., Ph.D.)<\/p>\n

Harvard University, English, Ph.D., 2006<\/p>\n

Ph.D. Dissertation: \u201cRenaissance Ecology: Environmental Consciousness and Crises in English Literature.”<\/p>\n

Dissertation Committee: Barbara Lewalski (Chair), Stephen Greenblatt, and Gordon Teskey.<\/p>\n

Harvard University, English, A.M., 2004<\/p>\n

Rutgers University, M.A., 2002<\/p>\n

M.A. Thesis: \u201cThe Ecological Importance of Place in Milton\u2019s Poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thesis\u00a0Advisor: Diane McColley.<\/p>\n

Rutgers University, B.A., 1992<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Academic Appointments<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

2013-Present,\u00a0Professor, Department of Environmental\u00a0Studies,\u00a0UC Santa Barbara<\/p>\n

2012-Present,\u00a0Professor, Department of English,\u00a0UC Santa Barbara<\/p>\n

2012-13, Princeton University,\u00a0Joint Appointment<\/p>\n

Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities,\u00a0Princeton Environmental Institute<\/p>\n

Visiting Professor, Department of English<\/p>\n

2008-2012,\u00a0Associate Professor, Department of English,\u00a0UC Santa Barbara<\/p>\n

2006-2008,\u00a0Assistant Professor, Department of English,\u00a0UC Santa Barbara<\/p>\n

2004-06,\u00a0Teaching Fellow, Department of English,\u00a0Harvard University<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Honors & Awards<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Named Co-Coordinator of the Critical Issues in American Series, 2015-16<\/p>\n

Nominated\u00a0for UCSB’s University-Wide Distinguished Teaching Award,\u00a02014-15.<\/p>\n

UCSB Sustainability Champion, 2014-15<\/p>\n

Nominated\u00a0for UCSB’s University-Wide Distinguished Teaching Award,\u00a02013-14.<\/p>\n

Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting\u00a0Professor in the Environment and the\u00a0Humanities, Princeton University, 2012-13<\/p>\n

Nominated\u00a0for UCSB’s University-Wide Distinguished Teaching Award,\u00a02012-13.<\/p>\n

Instructional Development Grant, UCSB Office of Academic Programs, 2012-13.<\/p>\n

Faculty Research Grant, UCSB Academic Senate, 2009-10.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutstanding Professor,\u201d UCSB Residence Halls Association, 2007-08.<\/p>\n

Faculty Research Grant, UCSB Academic Senate, 2007-08.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bowdoin Prize<\/a>, \u201cThe Not-So-Green View from Cooper\u2019s Hill,\u201d 2004-05.<\/p>\n

Finalist for Harvard’s\u00a0University-Wide Joseph R. Levenson Teaching Award, 2004-05.<\/p>\n

Harvard’s\u00a0Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching<\/a> (three-time consecutive recipient)<\/p>\n

Fall 2005,\u00a0Milton<\/em><\/p>\n

Spring 2005,\u00a0Metaphysics of the Metaphysical Poets<\/em><\/p>\n

Fall 2004,\u00a0Major British Writers I, from Beowulf through Milton<\/em><\/p>\n

Conference Grant from Harvard University’s Humanities Center, sponsored in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2003-04.<\/p>\n

Harvard’s\u00a0English Prize Fellowship (four-time consecutive recipient)<\/p>\n

2005-06<\/p>\n

2004-05<\/p>\n

2003-04<\/p>\n

2002-03<\/p>\n

Rutger’s Alumni Award for Most Distinguished Scholar, 2002.<\/p>\n

Rutger’s James Sanderson Award for “The Most Outstanding Graduate English Paper” (two-time recipient)<\/p>\n

2001-02<\/p>\n

2000-01<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a>Websites\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Websites Authored<\/p>\n

Environmental Humanities Center<\/a><\/p>\n

KenHiltner.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Milton Society of America\u00a0<\/em>(www.miltonsociety.org<\/a>; now updated by the MSA\u00a0Communication\u00a0Officer)<\/p>\n

Literature and the Environment at UCSB\u00a0<\/em>(now incorporated into the Department Website; original\u00a0site nonoperational)<\/p>\n

The Worldly Earth<\/em>\u00a0at Harvard University (now nonoperational)<\/p>\n

The original\u00a0Renaissance Colloquium<\/em>\u00a0website at Harvard University (now nonoperational)<\/p>\n

Select Course Websites\u00a0Authored<\/p>\n

Intro to\u00a0Literature\u00a0and the Environment\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Theories of Literature and the Environment\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Pastoral<\/em><\/p>\n

Early Modern Limits of the Human<\/em><\/p>\n

Websites Overhauled<\/p>\n

UCSB\u2019s\u00a0Early Modern Center<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in 2008-09.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n

<\/a>Personal<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Prior to becoming an English professor, Ken Hiltner made his living as a furniture maker. As a second-generation woodworker, he received commissions from five continents and had collections featured in major metropolitan galleries. He currently lives in Santa Barbara in a little old house, in the midst of a large garden, with his wife and daughter, and their dog\u00a0Penny<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-48","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1777,"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48\/revisions\/1777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hiltner.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}