Curriculum Vitae
David R. Williams
PO
Box 12
Lincoln,
Va 20160
(540) 338-2503 -h
Email:
drwillia@gmu.edu
(703) 993-1197 -w
Webpage: http://mason.gmu.edu/~drwillia
http://www.sinboldly.com
Education:
Ph.D. American Civilization, 1982,
Brown University
Thesis: "The Fiery Hunt: New
England in the Jaws of an Angry God"
Advisor: Barton Levi St. Armand
M.T.S. (Masters of Theological Studies)
1975,
Harvard Divinity School
-Baccalaureate Speaker-
B.A. (cl) American History, 1972, Harvard
College
Teaching Experience:
Currently Visiting Assistant Professor
of English, George Mason.
George Mason University, Visiting
Assistant Professor of English and
American Studies
and Lecturer, Teaching Graduate and Undergraduate courses; and Adjunct
Professor of
American Literature and
Composition Northern Virginia Community
College,
1985-2001.
Fulbright Lecturer, American History and
Literature,
Philosophical Faculty, Comenius
University, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, 1991/1992
- a one year Fulbright Fellowship
Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Worcester, Mass, Visiting Professor
1983/84
Brown University, Post-graduate Lecturer,
History, Education, and English, 1982/83.
AWARDS:
George Mason University’s
“Excellence in Teaching” 1999/2000
Fulbright Fellowship, Comenius
University, Slovakia, 1991/1992
Publications:
Books:
Wilderness Lost: The Religious Origins of
the American Mind
Associated University Presses, 1987. 2d
printing 1990.
Revolutionary War Sermons, Scholars Facsimiles, 1984.
One of the series: "The
Sermon in America." Facsimiles of
sermons with substantial introduction and notes.
Sin Boldly! : Dr. Dave's Guide to Writing
the College Paper,
Perseus Press, Cambridge, Mass: 2000
In Anarchy and Dissent: American
Literature in the ‘60s, chapter titled “Madness and Death – two
ways out of the cage: Ken Kesey’s
Liberation American style” Universidad de Salamanca,
Salamanca, Spain, 2000.
In From
Virgin Land to Disney World: Nature and its Discontents in the American of
Yesterday and
Today,chapter titled “’Back to the Garden:’ The
Liberation of the Id in the Antinomian Sixties’” ,
Editions Rodpi: Amsterdam and Atlanta,
Forthcoming
[Currently
in process ]. : "Jason Sham Too": The Real Meaning of the American Sixties
Published
Articles and Reviews (Chronological
order)
“Night and Chaos in the Howling Wilderness
of Cape Cod: Thoreau’s Final Surrender to the Text,”
Selected publications from the 1999 ASLE Conference, Univ of Texas Press, Upcoming
“Snobs and Slobs” and “Cliches”,
The Vocabula Review Robert Fiske, Editor, an on-line
magazine
of language: http: www.vocabula.com. March, May 2001
“Cotton Mather's Analysis of Witchcraft: A
foreshadowing of the Invisible World of
Psychoanalysis," Clio’s Psyche (Forthcoming)
“Mr. Delay had it right: Absolutism and Relativism were at the heart of
the Clinton Matter,”
Outlook Section, Washington Post, Sunday, March 7, 1999
Book reviews & Interviews for LOUDOUN ART
Richard Moore, Formalism and Madness in Poetry, an interview
The Height of our Mountains Michael branch (on
eco-regionalism);
Bingo Night at the
Fire Hall Barbara Holland (on development and cultural loss);
O Appalachia! Ramona & Millard Lampell (on Appalachian folk
art).
Willa Cather’s Loudoun
County
“Clinton as all-American con-man” Clio’s Psyche v. 5, no. 3, December 1998
“Bob Dylan and Emily Dickinson: Typological
Poets of the Broken Heart.” CRAWDADDY!
and On The Tracks April, 1998.
“Adjunct Faculty:” in Opinion Section Washington Post, Sunday Edition,
C8, September 14, 1997
"Critics in the Wilderness: Literary
Theory and the Historical Roots of the American
wilderness tradition." Weber
Studies (Wilderness Issue),
September 1994.
"Emerson, Orwell, and the Corruption
of Language," Journal of
Slovak Anglicists, Comenius
University, Bratislava, CS (1993)
"The Demise of Hard Cider as America's
Favorite Working Class Drink" on The
Cider
Page
Posted 1995
http://www.teleport.com/%7Eincider/demiseCider.Html
Contributing Editor: American National
Biography, "Mary Moody Emerson,"
"Sarah Alden
Bradford Ripley" Oxford University Press, Forthcoming
Contributing author: Dictionary of
Christianity in America, "R.W.
Emerson," "Alexis de
Tocquiville," "Lew
Wallace," "The
Pilgrims," 1990
"Edwards' Humiliation and Huck Finn's
Damnation: Experience and appearance
in
America's Moral Wilderness" in the
CRESSET: A Review of Literature, the Arts, and
Public Affairs LII,4, February, 1989.
"The Wilderness Rapture of Mary Moody
Emerson," Studies in the American
Renaissance, Joel Myerson, ed., 1986.
"New Directions in Puritan
Studies," essay review of Caldwell The Puritan Conversion
Narrative
and Gura A Glimpse of Sion's Glory
in American Quarterly, Spring,
1985.
"Andreus Bernardus Smolnikar:
American Catholic Apostate and Millennial Prophet," American
Benedictine Review, March, 1984. (Written with Br. Jon Alexander, O.P.)
"'This Consciousness that is aware':
Emily Dickinson in the wilderness of mind," Soundings; An
Interdisciplinary Journal, Fall, 1983.
"Horses, Pigeons, and the Therapy of
Conversion: A Behaviorist Reading of Jonathan Edwards'
psychology," Harvard Theological Review, October, 1981.
"Home Cru," The Washington Post
Magazine, 1986, column on home wine-making.
"View from the Ridge" bi-weekly
social commentary in The Blue Ridge Leader
Papers
Currently at Journals for Consideration:
"John Winthrop's Arbella Sermon
and the Origins of American
Multiculturalism,"
American Studies
Professional Papers
Presented:
“The
Dangers of Romanticism for the Environmental Movement in America”. ASLE Conference, Flagstaff, Arizona June 2001
“Destroying
the Ego for Divine Vision” ASLE Conference, Flagstaff, Arizona, June 2001
Moderator:
Panel on The Sixties, and presenter of
“’Sympathy
for the Devil’: The Post-Modern meaning of Charlie Manson”, Popular Culture
Association National Convention, New Orleans,
2000.
“Melville’s
‘Watery Wilderness’: A Nineteenth-century Post-modern Exodus from the Egyptian
Text”
Melville
and the Sea Conference; Williams College Maritime Studies Program, Mystic Ct .June 1999
Moderator: Panel on Thoreau and presenter
of--
“’Night And Kaos’ in the howling wilderness
of Cape
Cod: Thoreau’s confrontation with Negative Theo-ry/ology” Conference
of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), Kalamazoo, MI June 1999.
Convener,
Moderator, and presenter for a material culture panel on Hard Cider
in
America, “The Cultural Mystery of Hard
Cider’s Demise in 19th Century America”;
Popular Culture Association’s annual
convention, Baltimore, October 1997
"The Need to Listen to Other
Epistemologies: Old Testament Typology and the Signifying of
Otherness" Conference of Association for the Study of Literature and
Environment, ASLE, July,
1997, Missoula, Montana
"Thelma and Louise in the
Wilderness: or Butch Cassidy and
Jonathan Edwards in Drag." Panel on "Popular Presentation of
Religion," New England Popular Culture Association Conference (NEPCA), Worcester, Mass. October 7, 1995
"John Winthrop's Arbella Sermon and
American Multiculturalism: A Plea
Against Balkanization," Conference
on "History, Ideology, and Remarkable Exclusions," Fairfax, Va.,
June, 1993.
"Reconstructing Amerika: The Sixties as
a Great Awakening,” Sixties Generation,
An Interdisciplinary Conference,
Fairfax, VA., March, 1993.
"Structure and anti-Structure: Patterns
of Reform and Religion in American History," Oberreifenberg Seminar 1992,
Amerika Haus Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany.
"The Origins of Wilderness Iconography
from Aaron to Abbey," The
Institute of German Philology, University of
Trieste, Trieste, Italy, February, 1992.
"Rethinking
Cotton Mather's definition of Witchcraft,"
Conference on Literature and Culture in
Colonial America, Gutenberg Universitat,
Mainz, Germany, December, 1991.
Keynote Speaker, Association of Lutheran
Faculties Conference, October, 1988.
"Edwards' Humiliation, Franklin's Inclination, Huck Finn's
Damnation: Experience
and Appearance in America's Moral
Wilderness."
Respondent, Panel on Colonial New England
Sub-cultures, New England Historical
Association, October, 1983.
Coordinator and MC, Panel Discussion on
"The Future of American Civilization,"
Faculty Symposium, Brown 1980
Academic Community
Activities:
Chair: “Excellence in Teaching” Selection
Committee 2000/01
Adjunct Representative: Chair’s
Advisory Committee
Ex-officio Member Faculty Senate
Committee on Adjuncts
G.M.U. Freshman Orientation Summer
Advisor, 1995
M.A.I.S. (Master of Arts in
Independent Studies) advisor
Advisor, G.M.U. Cambodian Students Club; Young
Democrats; Zymurgy Club;
Advisor, G.M.U. Program Board (Instrumental in bringing Nat Hentoff to
campus)
Contributor and advisor to GMU student
paper The Broadside
Active Cybercitizen, IEAHC-Net,
H-Amstdy, Amlit-l, ASLE-l,
Local Community Activities:
Ass’t Editor, Contributor: Loudoun Arts Journal
Ass't Editor and Bi-Weekly columnist:
Blue Ridge Leader
Discussion Leader, Fairfax Library “Center for the Book”
For Grapes of Wrath and Inherit
the Wind
Officer: Loudoun Education Alliance
of Parents (LEAP)
-Curriculum Committee Chair
Vice-president: Lincoln Community
League
Secretary: Loudoun County Democratic
Committee
Local Coordinator: Keep Loudoun
Beautiful
Secretary: Loudoun County Electoral
Board
Campaign Manager: Eleanor Towe for
Supervisor, 1991, 1995
Editor "COURAGE" -
Occasional county Democratic newspaper
Recommendations on file:
Chris Thaiss, Chair, GMU English
Department, (cthaiss@gmu.edu)
George mason University,
Fairfax, VA. 22030 703-993-1160
David Kuebrich, Former Chair,
American Studies Department,
George Mason University, Fairfax,
Virginia 22030 703-993-1160
(dkuebric@gmu.edu)
Coilin Owens, English
Department, (cowens@gmu.edu)
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
22030 703-993-1160
Beverly Blois, Chair, Humanities Division, No.
Virginia Community College
Sterling, Va. 20164 703-450-2505
(bblois@nova.cc.va.us)
Warren Belasco, American Studies,
University of Maryland – Baltimore County,
Baltimore, MD 21250
410-455-1000
(belasco@umbc.edu)
Michael Zimmerman, Professor of
Philosophy,
Tulane University, New Orleans,
LA.
Veronica Makarova, Professor,
Philosophical Faculty,
Comenius University, Bratislava,
Slovak Republic
Barton St. Armand, English
Department, Brown
University, Providence, R.I.
02912
Theodore Sizer (Former Dean Harvard
School of Education)
Education Department, Brown
University,
William Hutchison, Harvard
Divinity School,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 22038
Gordon Wood, History Department, Brown University,
Providence, R.I. 02912
Brian Hansen, Northern Virginia
Community College,
Sterling, Virginia 20164 703-450-2505
COURSES TAUGHT:
George Mason University:
English Department:
"Colonial American
Literature" Senior and Graduate levels,
“Edwards and PostModernism” (independent study)
"Early and nineteenth-century
American Literature,"
"Literature and Social
Change,"
"The Meaning of the
Sixties,"
"Melville and
Twain," "Faulkner,"
"The American Renaissance,"
"Nature, Culture, &
Literature"
"Composition” (including advanced composition for nursing,
business, history, social science)
American Studies:
"Popular Culture in
America"
"Introduction to American
Studies,"
"The Entrepreneur In
America",
"The American Dream"
Comenius University,
Bratislava, Slovakia
"American Popular Culture in the
1960s"
"United States History"
"Modern American Politics"
"Surveys of American
Literature"
Northern Virginia Community
College
"Composition", developmental and regular
"Introduction to
Literature"
Survey
of Early and of Modern American Literature
Courses: "The American
Revolution,"
"Western Civilization
101"
"Religion and
American Culture"