Curriculum Vitae
Robert William Thacker
Canadian Studies Program 688 Judson Street Road
St. Lawrence University Canton, New York 13617
Canton, New York 13617
Phone: (315) 229-5970 (o) (315) 379-9807 (h)
FAX: (315) 229-5802
E-mail: rthacker@stlawu.edu
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, 1981 (English)
M.A. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 1976 (English)
B.A. cum laude, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1973 (English; Political Science Minor)
ACADEMIC AND EDITORIAL APPOINTMENTS:
1999- Advisory Editor, Great Plains Quarterly
1997-99 Invited Guest Editor, Special Issue on Alice Munro, Essays on Canadian Writing
1995-99 Invited Guest Coeditor, Willa Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections. Cather Studies 4
1994- Editor, The American Review of Canadian Studies
1993- Professor of Canadian Studies, St. Lawrence University
1992-99,
2001- Director, Canadian Studies Program, St. Lawrence University
1990-91 Visiting Research Associate, Canadian Studies Program, Western Washington University
1988-93 Associate Professor of Canadian Studies, St. Lawrence University
1988-93 Associate Editor (Book Reviews), The American Review of Canadian Studies
1987-90 Director, Canadian Studies Program, St. Lawrence University
1983-87 Assistant Professor of Canadian Studies and Associate Director of Program, St. Lawrence University
1981-83 Visiting Assistant Professor of English, University of Vermont
1976-81 Managing Editor, Canadian Review of American Studies
TEACHING FIELDS:
American Literature, Canadian Literature in English, Canadian Studies.
Special expertise in Alice Munro, Canadian-American Literary Comparisons, Canadian Literary Culture, Canadian Short Story, Canadian Women Writers, Prairie-Plains Fiction, Willa Cather, and Western-Canadian and -American History and Culture.
Representative Courses:
Canadian-American Encounters (team-taught), Canadian Culture(s) (team taught), Canadian Fiction, Canadian Poetry, Canadian Short Fiction, Fiction and the Interdisciplinary Context (graduate), French Canada: A Separate Culture (team taught), Introduction to Canada (interdisciplinary), Introduction to Canadian Literature, Modern American Novel, Mountie versus Outlaw: Fact, Fiction, and the Western Hero, Seminar: Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives, Seminar: Canadian West as Region, Seminar: Five Dead Canadians: Biography and Iconography, Seminar: Imagining the Northwest Coast: Emily Carr as Painter, Writer, Icon, Seminar: Literature of the Great Plains, Seminar: West in Fiction, Seminar: Willa Cather, Survey of American Literature (1620-Present).
PUBLICATIONS:
Book:
The Great Prairie Fact and Literary Imagination. Albuquerque: U New Mexico P, 1989. x + 301 pp.
Edited Books:
The Rest of the Story: Critical Essays on Alice Munro. Ed. Robert Thacker. Toronto: ECW Press, 1999. 231 pp. Also published as Alice Munro, Writing On . . . . Essays on Canadian Writing 66 (Winter 1998).
Willa Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections. Cather Studies 4.
Ed. Robert Thacker and Michael A. Peterman. Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 1999. 342 pp.
Monograph:
"English-Canadian Literature." The ACSUS Papers. Washington: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, 1989. 34 pp. Rev. ed. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1996. 42 pp.
Articles:
"Where Do I Belong?: Willa Cather's Apocalyptic Landscapes." Forthcoming Canadian Review of American Studies.
"Willa Cather's Glittering Regions." Forthcoming Blackwell's Companion to American Regional Literature. Ed. Charles Crow. London: Blackwell, 2002.
"Stretching Up, Longing for Something Beyond What She Sees: Belief, Metonymy, and Emily Carr’s Northwest Landscapes." Forthcoming
Literature and Belief 21.2 (2001).
"It’s Through Myself that I Knew and Felt Her’: S. S. McClure’s My Autobiography and the Development of Willa Cather’s Autobiographical Realism." American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 33 (2001): 123-42.
"Canadian Literature's 'America.'" Essays on Canadian Writing 71 (2001):
194-205.
"Mapping Munro: Reading the ‘Clues.’" In Dominant Impressions: Essays on the Canadian Short Story. Ed. Gerald Lynch. Ottawa: U Ottawa P, 1999. 127-35.
"Being on the North West Coast: Emily Carr, Cascadian." Pacific Northwest Quarterly 90 (1999): 182-90.
"Introduction: Alice Munro, Writing ‘Home’: ‘Seeing This Trickle in
Time.’" In The Rest of the Story: Critical Essays on Alice Munro. Ed. Robert Thacker. Toronto: ECW Press, 1999. 1-20. Also published in Alice Munro, Writing On . . . . Special Issue of Essays on Canadian Writing 66 (Winter 1998): 1-20.
"Voyaging into Substance Through The Jesuit Relations." Bulletin of the
Friends of the Owen D. Young and Launders Libraries 27 (1997): 7-17.
"Erasing the Forty-Ninth Parallel: Nationalism, Prairie Criticism, and the Case of Wallace Stegner." Essays on Canadian Writing 61 (1997): 179-202.
"(Auto)biographical Home Places in Carr, Laurence, and Munro." La Création Biographique / Biographical Creation. Ed. Marta Dvorak. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes and Association Française d’Études Canadiennes, 1997. 135-42.
"Four ‘New’ Cather Letters to Annie Fields at the Huntington Library." Cather Studies 3. Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 1996. 285-291.
"‘Sharing the Continent,’ Still: English-Canadian Nationalism and Cultural Sovereignty." Occasional Paper 8. Bowling Green: Canadian Studies Center, Bowling Green State University, 1996. 18 pp.
"‘The Yanks Have Come, The Yanks Have Come!’: Canadian Studies and the American Presence." Textual Studies in Canada 6 (1995): 40-54.
"Alice Munro and the Anxiety of American Influence." Context North America: Canadian / U.S. Literary Relations. Ed. Camille La Bossière. Ottawa: U Ottawa P, 1994. 133-44.
"‘Gone Back to Alberta’: Robert Kroetsch Rewriting the Great Plains." Coauthor Frances W. Kaye. Great Plains Quarterly 14 (1994): 167-83. Finalist for the 1994 Don D. Walker Prize for the Best Article on Western American Literature.
"Gazing Through the One-Way Mirror: English-Canadian Literature and the American Presence." Colby Quarterly 29 (1993): 74-87.
"A Self-Made Reciprocation: Canadian Literature in English." Northern Exposures: Scholarship on Canada in the United States. Ed. Karen Gould et al. Washington: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, 1993. 217-39.
"Alice Munro’s Willa Cather." Canadian Literature 134 (1992): 42-57. Nominated by Editors for the 1992 Don D. Walker Prize for the Best Article on Western American Literature.
"The Mystery of Francis Jeffrey Dickens, N. W. M. P., and Eric Nicol’s Dickens of the Mounted." Great Plains Quarterly 12 (1992): 19-30. Nominated by Editors for the 1992 Don D. Walker Prize for the Best Article on Western American Literature.
"Teaching My Ántonia as a Plains Novel." Approaches to Teaching Willa Cather’s My Ántonia. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. New York: Modern Language Association, 1989. 116-21.
"On Canadian Fiction." First Lines: Canadian Literature for the American Classroom. Ed. Victor Howard. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1988. 14-25.
"‘So Shocking a Verdict in Real Life’: Autobiography in Alice Munro’s Stories." Reflections: Autobiography and Canadian Literature. Ed. K. P. Stich. Ottawa: U Ottawa P, 1988. 153-61.
"The Grapes of Dearth: Steinbeck, Ross, and the Dustbowl ‘30s." Canadian Society and Culture in Times of Economic Depression. Ed. Jørn Carlson and Jean-Michel Lacroix, Canadian Issues 8 (1987): 193-203.
"Pictures and Prose: Romantic Sensibility and the Great Plains in Catlin, Kane, and Miller." Coauthor Ann Davis. Great Plains Quarterly 6 (1986): 3-20.
"The Plains, Parkman, and The Oregon Trail." Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 28 (1985): 262-70.
"Connection: Alice Munro and Ontario." The American Review of Canadian Studies 14 (1984): 213-26.
"Twisting Toward Insanity: Landscape and Female Entrapment in Plains Fiction." North Dakota Quarterly 52.3 (1984): 181-94.
"Clear Jelly: Alice Munro’s Narrative Dialectics." Probable Fictions: Alice Munro’s Narrative Acts. Ed. Louis K. MacKendrick. Toronto: ECW, 1983. 37-60.
"The Plains Landscape and Descriptive Technique." Great Plains Quarterly 2 (1982): 146-56.
"Foreigner: The Immigrant Voice in The Sacrifice and Under the Ribs of Death." Canadian Ethnic Studies 14 (1982): 25-35.
"Canada’s Mounted: The Evolution of a Legend." Journal of Popular Culture 14 (1980): 298-312.
Bibliography:
"Alice Munro: An Annotated Bibliography." The Annotated Bibliography of Canada’s Major Authors, Volume 5. Ed. Robert Lecker and Jack David. Toronto: ECW, 1984. 354-414.
Encyclopedia Entries:
"Literary Criticism," "Memoirs, Including Autobiography," and "North West
Mounted Police." Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Ed. David J. Wishart. Forthcoming Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 2001.
"Alice Munro." Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Volume 5. Ed. Steven Serafin. New York: Continuum, 1993. 434-36.
Introductions:
Introduction. The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman. Forthcoming London: Wordsworth, 2001.
"Introduction: Gazing Down from Cap Diamant: Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections." Coauthor Michael A. Peterman. Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections. Cather Studies 4. Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 1999. 1-6.
Introduction. The Autobiography of S. S. McClure. By Willa Cather. Lincoln: U Nebraska P, Bison Book, 1997. v-xvii.
Notes:
"Wallace Stegner 1909-93." Canadian Literature 140 (1994): 155-56.
"A Canadian Xenophobe." Letter. Response by Robin Mathews. The Canadian Forum (October 1994): 3.
Review Essays:
"Tragically Hip; or, Everything New is Old Again—Blake Allmendinger’s Ten Most Wanted: The New Western Literature." Western American Literature 34 (2000): 450-59.
"What’s ‘Material’"?: The Progress of Munro Criticism, Part 2." Review of Introducing Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women by Neil K. Besner; The Other Country: Patterns in the Writing of Alice Munro by James Carscallen; The Tumble of Reason: Alice Munro’s Discourse of Absence by Ajay Heble; Some Other Reality: Alice Munro’s Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You by Louis K. MacKendrick; Mothers and Other Clowns: The Stories of Alice Munro by Magdalene Redekop; Alice Munro: A Double Life by Catherine Sheldrick Ross; Figuring Grief: Gallant, Munro, and the Poetics of Elegy by Karen E. Smythe. Journal of Canadian Studies 33.2 (Summer 1998): 196-210.
"Go Ask Alice: The Progress of Munro Criticism." Review of Alice Munro by E. D. Blodgett; The Canadian Postmodern: A Study of Contemporary English-Canadian Fiction by Linda Hutcheon; The Canadian Short Story by Michele Gadpaille; Controlling the Uncontrollable: The Fiction of Alice Munro by Ildikó de Papp Carrington; Dance of the Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro by Beverly J. Rasporich; and Private and Fictional Words: Canadian Women Novelists of the 1970s and 1980s by Coral Ann Howells. Journal of Canadian Studies 26 (Summer 1991): 156-69.
"Hoodwinked; or, Trust the Tale." Review of The Motor Boys in Ottawa by Hugh Hood. Essays on Canadian Writing 39 (1989): 23-28.
"Conferring Munro." Review of The Art of Alice Munro: Saying the Unsayable, Judith Miller, ed. Essays on Canadian Writing 34 (1987): 162-69.
"Re-Viewing the New World." Review of Yankees in Canada: A Collection of Nineteenth-Century Travel Narratives, ed. James Doyle; Plotting the Golden West: American Literature and the Rhetoric of the California Trail by Stephen Fender; Where Two Worlds Meet: The Great Lakes Fur Trade by Carolyn Gilman; The West as Romantic Horizon by William H. Goetzmann and Joseph C. Porter; America 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White by Paul Hulton; Witnesses to a Vanishing America: The Nineteenth-Century Response by Lee Clark Mitchell; and Romantic Re-Vision: Culture and Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century American Painting and Literature by Bryan Jay Wolf. Canadian Review of American Studies 17 (1986): 51-68.
"Mountie versus Outlaw: Inventing the Western Hero." Review of Visions of The Canadian Mounties in Symbol and Myth by Keith Walden and Inventing Billy the Kid: Visions of the Outlaw in America, 1881-1981 by Stephen Tatum; Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (1985): 161-69.
"‘Where is the Voice Coming From?’: Toward a Western-Canadian Aesthetic." Review of Draft, ed. Dennis Cooley; Re-Placing, ed. Dennis Cooley; Homage, Henry Kelsey by Jon Whyte; Sinclair Ross: A Reader’s Guide by Ken Mitchell; and A Voice in the Land, ed. W. J. Keith; Western American Literature 19 (1984): 41-47.
"The Mountie as Metaphor." Review of Best Mounted Police Stories, ed. Dick Harrison. Dalhousie Review 59 (1979): 552-60.
"Political Theory and Canadian Literature." Review of In Our Own House: Social Perspectives on English-Canadian Literature, ed. Paul Cappon. Journal of Canadian Fiction 24 (1979): 159-64.
Short Reviews (Since 1991):
Review of Visions of Paradise: Glimpses of Our Landscape’s Legacy by John Warfield Simpson. Great Plains Quarterly 20 (2000): 326-27.
"Introducing Oeuvres." Review of Alice Munro by Coral Ann Howells and Mavis Gallant by Danielle Schaub. Canadian Literature 167 (2000): 124-26.
Review of Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism by Joan Acocella. American Literature 72 (2000): 876-77.
Review of Birthing a Nation: Gender, Creativity, and the West in American Literature by Susan J. Rosowski. Western American Literature 35 (2000): 330-31.
Review of Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work by Jackson J. Benson. Great Plains Quarterly 18 (1998): 269-70.
Review of This Woman in Particular: Contexts for the Biographical Image of Emily Carr by Stephanie Kirkwood Walker. Canadian Literature 156 (1998): 173-75.
Review of Paul Kane’s Great Nor-West by Diane Eaton and Sheila Urbanek. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 25 (1997): 332-34.
Review of Willa Cather and the Myth of American Migration by Joseph R. Urgo. American Literature 69 (1997): 230-31.
Review of The Prairie in Nineteenth-Century American Poetry by Steven Olson. American Literature 67 (1995): 387-88.
Review of E. K. Brown: A Study in Conflict by Laura Smyth Groening. American Literature 66 (1994): 610-11.
Review of Mapping Our Selves: Canadian Women’s Autobiography in English by Helen M. Buss. Biography 17 (1994): 304-07. Due to a printing error, reprinted Biography 18 (1995): 69-72.
Review of The Diaries of Charles Ora Card: The Canadian Years, 1886-1903, edited by Donald G. Godfrey and Brigham Y. Card. Weber Studies 11 (1994): 128-29.
Review of Stephen Leacock: The Sage of Orillia by James Doyle; k. d. lang: Carrying the Torch by William Robertson; Alice Munro: A Double Life, by Catherine Sheldrick Ross; and Dorothy Livesay: Patterns in a Poetic Life by Peter Stevens. Biography 17 (1994): 66-68.
Review of After the World Broke in Two: Willa Cather’s Late Fiction by Merrill McGuire Skaggs. Western American Literature 27 (1992): 63-64.
Review of Catlin and His Contemporaries: The Politics of Patronage by Brian W. Dippie. Western American Literature 26 (1991): 144.
Review of Images of the West by R. Douglas Francis. Great Plains Quarterly 11 (1991): 285-86.
Editorial Publications:
"Many, Many, Thanks." The American Review of Canadian Studies 30 (2000): 279-81.
"A Scholar’s Life Lived: Arnold E. ‘Ted’ Davidson." The American Review of Canadian Studies 29 (1999): 7-9.
"Reviewing Reviewing (or Reviewing, Reviewing!). The American Review of Canadian Studies 28 (1998): 7-10.
"‘Sharing the Continent.’" Coauthor Stephen J. Randall. The American Review of Canadian Studies / Canadian Review of American Studies 26 (1996): 297-99.
"Watching Quebec, Watching Canada." The American Review of Canadian Studies 25 (1995): 403-04.
"English Canada and Other Proximations." The American Review of Canadian Studies 25 (1995): 173-77.
"Really Real Canada." The American Review of Canadian Studies 25 (1995): 5-6.
"Of Theme Issues, Now and to Come." The American Review of Canadian Studies 24 (1994): 445.
"Meeting Robin Mathews (or, What is Alice Munro?)." The American Review of Canadian Studies 24 (1994): 165-69.
"Of New Editors and New Directions." The American Review of Canadian Studies 24 (1994): 5-9.
"Essaying the Review Essay." The American Review of Canadian Studies 20 (1990): 405-07.
"Of Books, Their Reviewers, and Their Reviews." The American Review of Canadian Studies 19.1 (1989): i-iii.
Nonacademic Writing:
"And Yet Another U. S. Border Crisis." Chicago Tribune 27 Sept. 1994: C7.
"Canada: More Than Mounties." The Christian Science Monitor 7 July 1993: 18. Syndicated.
"‘Up there,’ and Taken for Granted." Baltimore Sun 2 Nov. 1992: 13A. Also carried on Washington Post and Los Angeles Times wire services.
CONFERENCE PAPERS:
"Reading a Myopic Prairie: Constructing Prairie on Each Side of the Forty-Ninth Parallel." The Prairies: Visited and Revisited. St. John’s College, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. September 2001.
"Emily Carr's Totemic Northwest Forests." Western Literature Association. Norman, Oklahoma, October 2000.
"Placing Cather, Cather's Places." Invited Faculty Plenary Paper. Willa Cather’s Environmental Imagination. Eight International Willa Cather Seminar. Nebraska City, Nebraska, June 2000.
"Emily Carr and the Aesthetics of Canadian Nationalism." Tenth Biennial Conference of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland. Killiney, Ireland. May 2000.
"Stretching Up, Longing for Something Beyond What She Sees: The Immanent Spirituality of Emily Carr’s Northwest Landscapes" Invited presentation. Spritual Frontiers 2000: Belief and Values in the Literary West." Brigham Young University. Provo, Utah, March 2000.
"Still Gazing (Through the One-Way Mirror) After All These Years." Invited presentation. Canadian Literature and Culture at the Turn of the Millennium. University of Guelph. Guelph, Ontario, November 1999.
"Crossing Frontiers, Riding Point." Past President’s Address. Western Literature Association. Sacramento, California, October 1999.
"Living His Life Over Again: S. S. McClure, Tom Outland, and The Professor’s House." Willa Cather on Mesa Verde: A Symposium." Mancos, Colorado, October 1999.
"Making a Literary Career: Willa Cather and Her Reviewers." American Literature Association. Baltimore, Maryland, May 1999.
"The Place I Started Out From: Willa Cather’s Homecomings." Invited Faculty Plenary Paper. Seventh International Willa Cather Seminar. Winchester, Virginia, June 1997.
"Reading Across the Medicine Line: Critics on the Great Plains." Great Plains Literature Symposium. University of Nebraska--Lincoln, April 1997.
"Mapping Munro: Reading the ‘Clues.’" Canadian Short Story Symposium. University of Ottawa. April 1997.
"Willa Cather’s S. S. McClure." Western Literature Association. Lincoln, Nebraska. October 1996.
"Emily Carr in Cascadia." "On Brotherly Terms": Canadian-American Relations West of the Rockies. University of Washington. Seattle. September 1996.
"‘Sharing the Continent,’ Still: English Canadian Nationalism and Sovereignty." Invited keynote address, Ohio Canadian Studies Roundtable Meeting, Columbus. April 1996.
"Erasing the 49th Parallel: Regionalism, Nationalism, and Prairie-Plains Writing." Western Literature Association. Vancouver, British Columbia, October 1995.
"Willa Cather, S.S. McClure, and the Act of My Autobiography." Paper presented to the Sixth International Willa Cather Seminar, Quebec City, Quebec, June 1995.
"(Auto)biographical Home Places in Carr, Laurence, and Munro: Reading the Clues." Invited paper presented to the Conference on Biographical Production. Université Rennes 2 Haute-Bretagne, Rennes, France, May 1995.
"Why Canada?--The Canadian Presence in the Curriculum." Invited paper presented to Multidisciplinary Approaches to Canadian Studies and the University Curriculum. Mansfield University, Mansfield, Pennsylvania, April 1995.
"‘Who Could Believe?’: Castañeda’s Narrative of the Coronado Expedition and the Western Environment." Western Literature Association. Salt Lake City, Utah, October 1994.
"Canadian Studies and the American Presence." Alternative Frontiers: West Canadian Studies Conference. Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, February 1994.
"Making Manawaka: Margaret Laurence’s Autobiographical Place." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. New Orleans, Louisiana, November 1993.
"Wallace Stegner as Canadian Writer." Western Literature Association. Wichita, Kansas, October 1993.
"Mapping Cather’s Autobiographical Places." Fifth International Seminar on Willa Cather. Hastings and Red Cloud, Nebraska, June 1993.
"‘More Vital Searching’: Nature as Autobiography in Emily Carr’s Writing." Western Literature Association. Reno, Nevada, October 1992.
"Gazing Through the One-Way Mirror: English Canadian Literature and the American Presence." Combined Meeting of the European Association for American Studies, the Canadian Association for American Studies, and the American Studies Association. Seville, Spain, April 1992.
"Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel as a Quintessential Great Plains Text." Western Literature Association. Estes Park, Colorado. October 1991.
"Comparing Mythologies, Crossing Mythologies: The Problematic of Canadian-American Literary Comparisons." Facing North / Facing South: A Multidisciplinary Conference on Canadian-United States-Mexican Relations. University of Calgary, May 1991.
"‘Oh, Writing Makes My Life Possible’: Alice Munro and the Anxiety of American Influence." Context North America: Canadian-U. S. Literary Relations. University of Ottawa, April 1991.
"Dickens of the Mounted: Canadian Mounties in Fiction (Continued)." Great Plains Symposium: Law, the Bill of Rights, and the Great Plains. University of Nebraska--Lincoln, March 1991.
"The Place of Place in Great Plains Fiction." Western Literature Association. Denton, Texas, October 1990.
"The Bitter Lump of Love: Mothers, Fathers, and Autobiographical Sequence in Munro’s Stories." Northeast Modern Language Association. Toronto, April 1990.
"Approaching the Wilderness Text: The Case of Alexander Henry the Younger." Joint Meeting of the American Studies Association and the Canadian Association for American Studies. Toronto, November 1989.
"Frontiers Open and Shut: Cooper’s The Prairie and McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove." Western Literature Association. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, October 1989.
"Finding The Oregon Trail: Perception, Journal, Text(s)." Joint Meeting of the American Studies Association and the Canadian Association for American Studies. New York City, November 1987.
"An Avalanche of ‘Munroviana.’" Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. Montreal, October 1987.
"The Literary Dimension of Borderlands." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. Montreal, October 1987.
"Alice Munro’s Willa Cather." Third International Symposium on Willa Cather Hastings and Red Cloud, Nebraska, June 1987.
"‘So Shocking a Verdict in Real Life’: Autobiography in Alice Munro’s Stories." Symposium on Autobiography and Canadian Literature. University of Ottawa, April 1987.
"Nothing Even to Hide Behind: Frontier Plainswomen in Fiction and Fact." Women’s Culture in the Great Plains Symposium. University of Nebraska--Lincoln, March 1987.
"Convention, Landscape, and Irving’s A Tour on the Prairies." Western Literature Association. Durango, Colorado, October 1986.
"Modern Canadian Literature and the Question of Canon." Modern Canadian Literature: A Seminar for Scholars and Librarians. Duke University, November 1985.
"The Grapes of Dearth: Steinbeck, Ross, and the Dustbowl '30s." Combined meeting of Association for Canadian Studies, Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures, and The International Council for Canadian Studies, Montreal, June 1985.
"Pictures and Prose: Romantic Sensibility and the Great Plains in Catlin, Kane, and Miller." Co-author Ann Davis. Symposium on European Influences on the Visual Arts of the Great Plains. University of Nebraska--Lincoln, March 1984.
"Luminous Landscape: Willa Cather’s Prairie." Western Literature Association. St. Paul, October 1983.
"Refining the Past: Uses of History in Contemporary Western Canadian Writing." Western Social Science Association. Albuquerque, April 1983.
"The Naked Truth: W. H. Auden as Critic." Northeast Modern Language Association. Erie, Pennsylvania, April 1983.
"Twisting Toward Insanity: Landscape and Female Entrapment in Plains Fiction." Western Literature Association. Denver, October 1982.
"Underwater Bacchanal: E. J. Pratt’s The Witches’ Brew." Northeast Modern Language Association. New York City, April 1982.
"Mythic Plain: Landscape and Technique in Cooper’s The Prairie." Canadian Association for American Studies. Montreal, October 1981.
"Landscape and Technique: North American Plains Fiction." American Pioneer Landscapes Symposium. University of Nebraska--Lincoln, May 1981.
"Alice Munro and the Critics: A Paradigm." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. Washington, D.C., September 1979.
"Foreigner: The Immigrant Voice in The Sacrifice and Under the Ribs of Death." Western Literature Association. Park City, Utah, September 1978.
"Canada’s Mounted: The Evolution of a Legend." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. Burlington, Vermont, October, 1977.
INVITED LECTURES:
Various lectures presented to classes and public audiences at: Boise State University, Bowling Green State University, Brigham Young University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, St. Lawrence University, State University College at Plattsburgh, Trent University, University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, University of California, Berkeley, University of Central Florida, University of Nebraska, University of Paris 3 (Sorbonne-Nouvelle), University of Rouen, University of South Dakota, University of Toronto, University of Valenciennes, University of Vermont, Western Washington University.
RESEARCH IN PREPARATION:
Books:
Connection: A Woman’s Place in the Fictional Landscapes of Emily Carr, Willa Cather, Margaret Laurence, and Alice Munro. Research and three chapters completed.
Alice Munro: A Critical Biography. Next book project. Ms. Munro has
agreed to cooperate.
Articles:
"Short Fiction." Invited essay for The Cambrigde Companion to Canadian Literature. Ed. Eva-Marie Kröller. 2002.
"S. S. McClure, McClure’s Magazine, and the Making of American Literature, 1884-1914." Being researched.
ASSESSMENT:
Solicited Outside Research Evaluator (Promotion, Tenure, and Reappointment):
Department of English, Bowling Green State University
Department of English, Gustavus Adolphus College
Department of English, Lehman College, The City University of New York
Department of English, Queen’s University
Department of English, St. Mary’s College (California)
Department of English, University of Calgary
Department of English, University of Nebraska--Kearney
Department of English, University of Nebraska—Lincoln
Department of English, University of Nebraska--Omaha
Department of English, University of Ottawa
Department of English, University of Toronto
Department of English, Utah State University
Department of English, Wichita State University
School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University
External Dissertation Examiner: Department of English, McGill University.
Essay manuscripts: Alberta, American Literary Realism, The American Review of Canadian Studies, Canadian Literature, Canadian Review of American Studies, Essays on Canadian Writing, Great Plains Quarterly, Journal of Canadian Studies, International Journal of Canadian Studies, Western American Literature.
Book manuscripts: Blackwells Publishers, Broadview Press, Duke University Press, Humanities and Social Scienece Federation of Canada, Ohio University Press, University of Nebraska Press, University of New Mexico Press, University Press of Kansas, University of Rochester Press, University of Toronto Press, Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Assessor, Canadian Embassy Institutional and Faculty Research Grant Programs, Fulbright Foundation for Educational Exchange Between Canada and the United States of America, Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Research Grants and Postdoctoral Fellowships.
RESEARCH AND GRANT FUNDING:
"Alice Munro: A Critical Biography." Canadian Studies Research Grant Program, 1999-2000. Canadian Embassy, Washington. $4,740.
"S. S. McClure, McClure’s Magazine, and the Making of American Literature, 1884-1914." Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship. November 1999. The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. $1500.
"Interconnecting Diasporas: Globalizing Area Studies." Consortium project of St. Lawrence University, Trent University, and the University of the West Indies (St. Augustine, Trinidad). Funded under the Ford Foundation’s Crossing Borders: Revitalizing Area Studies program. Project Director, 1997-99. $400,000.
"Crossing the West(s): Inventing Frontiers." Canadian Studies Conference Grant, 1998-1999. In support of the Joint Meeting of the Western Literature Association and the Canadian Association for American Studies. Banff, Alberta, October 1998. $5,250.
Senior Fellowship, Canadian Embassy, Washington, D. C. "A Woman’s Place: Gender, Autobiography, and the Fictional Landscapes of Emily Carr, Willa Cather, Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, and Eudora Welty." 1990-91. $18,000.
Canadian Studies Faculty Research Grant, Canadian Embassy, Washington, D. C. "Landscape and Technique: Canadian Prairie Fiction in its North American Context." $3,625.
Advisor to Jennifer Rossie’s Summer 1984 Grant, "Writing Canadian: The Social and Literary Context." National Endowment for the Humanities Younger Scholars Program.
Wrote application and served as Project Director for 1984 Department of Education (Title VI) Grant under its Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program. "Canadian Studies at St. Lawrence University: A Two-Year Plan to Add a Key Faculty Member, Develop a New Foreign Language Winterterm Program, Add to Curricular Resources and Enhance Work in Canadian-American Environmental Problems and Canadian Culture." $57,000.
ACADEMIC AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS:
1999-2003 Executive Secretary and Treasurer, Western Literature Association
(elected)
1995-98 Vice-President, President-Elect, and President, Western Literature Association (elected). In this capacity, organized "Crossing the West(s): Inventing Frontiers," 33rd Annual Meeting of the Western Literature Association, Banff, Alberta (October 1998).
1995 Codirector and Organizer, Sixth International Willa Cather Seminar, Quebec City and Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick (June 1995)
1992, 94- Member, Don D. Walker Prize Committee, best article on Western American literature, administered by the Western Literature Association. (Recused in those years in which an article of mine has been nominated.)
Nebraska--Lincoln (elected)
(elected)
1987, 1989
1992, 1995 Large Faculty Research Grant, St. Lawrence University
UNIVERSITY SERVICE (Since 1988):
Vice-Chair, Professional Standards Committee (elected), 2001-
Priorities and Planning Committee, 2000-
Global Studies Advisory Board, 1998-99
Project Director, St. Lawrence University Ford Foundation Grant,
"Crossing Borders" Initiative, 1997-99
Chair, Ford College, 1997-98
Chair, Campbell College, 1996-97, 1998-99
Chair, Professional Standards Committee, 1995-98 (elected Member, 1994-
98)
Chair, University Relations Task Force, 1998 Middle States Accreditation
Review
Tripartite Library Committee, 1995-96 (Chair, 1988-89)
Large Research Grant Review Committee, 1993-95
Chair, University Librarian Search Committee, 1993-94
Tripartite International Education Advisory Committee, 1992-
Grievance Hearing Board, 1992-93
Joint Board of Inquiry, 1990, 1994-96
Chair, Department of English Plagiarism Committee, 1988-89
Chair, Reiff College, 1988-90
First Year Program Plagiarism Committee, 1988-90 (Chair, 1988-89)
First Year Program Residential Education Committee, 1988-89
Gender Studies Committee (Advisory Board, 1988-90)
Online Public Access Catalogue Steering Committee, 1988-89
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:
American Council for Quebec Studies (ACQS)
Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ASCUS)
Canadian Association for American Studies (CAAS)
Conference of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ)
Western Literature Association (WLA)
The Willa Cather Society
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY:
French: Reading, Aural, and Spoken--Intermediate Level
German: Reading
REFERENCES:
Available on request