Curriculum Vitae
Robert Daly
Department of English
306 Clemens Hall, Box 604610
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260-4610
716-645-2575, ext. 1052
Email: rdaly@buffalo.edu
Education
Cornell University, Ph.D. 1972
University of Akron, M.A. 1967, B.A. 1965
Research Fellowships
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1979-80
Leverhulme Fellowship, 1972-73
Grants
National Endowment for the Humanities Grants to Direct Summer Seminars, 1996-97, l993-94, 1991-92, 1989-90, 1988-89
Faculty Grant for Instructional Technology, 1995-96
New York State/United University Professions "Experienced Faculty Travel Award," 1987
National Endowment for the Humanities Grant (with Professors Ruth Meyerowitz and James
Bunn), 1984-86
SUNY Research Development Fund Grant, 1982
International Communication Agency Travel Grant (to read papers in Hungary, Denmark, and
Norway), 1980
American Comparative Literature Association Travel Grant (part of a block grant from the
American Council of Learned Societies), 1976
Institutional Funds Travel Grant, 1975-76
New York Research Foundation Grants, 1977, 1975
Awards
Career Services Award, 2005
Generation magazine selection as one of “Our Favorite Professors,” 2001
Doylestown High School Wall of Fame, 1991
Panhellenic Council Chi Omega Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1989
Student Association Milton Plesur Memorial Teaching Award, 1988
Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1977
Phi Kappa Phi, 1972
Guilford Prize, Cornell University, 1971
Humanities and Social Sciences Fellowship (Ford Foundation), 1969-72
National Defense Education Act Title IV Fellowship, 1969-72
Pixley Award, 1965
Phi Sigma Alpha Scholarship, 1964
Ashton Prize, 1963
Academic Appointments
SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor University at Buffalo 1990-
Professor of English University at Buffalo 1985-90
Associate Professor of English University at Buffalo 1977-85
Assistant Professor of English University at Buffalo 1973-77
Instructor in English Iowa State University 1967-69
Visiting Appointments
Visiting Professor of English Chapman University 1982
Visiting Associate Professor of English Cornell University 1980
Visiting Appointment, Faculty of Literature Cambridge University 1979-80
Leverhulme Visiting Fellow University of Essex 1972-73
Affiliated Appointment
Program in Comparative Literature University at Buffalo
Full Member 1996-
Associate Member 1993-96
Publications
Book
God's Altar: The World and the Flesh in Puritan Poetry. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1978.
Articles
“From World to Word and Back Again: Coopers Now and Next.” Reading Cooper, Teaching Cooper. New York: AMS Press, 2006.
Entry on The Scarlet Letter. The Literary Encyclopedia. Online reference source. 2006.
Entry on John Gardner. The Literary Encyclopedia. Online reference source. 2005.
Entry on Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Literary Encyclopedia. Online reference source. 2004.
“Mischief, Insanity, Memetics, and Agency in The Linwoods.” Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Lucinda Damon-Bach and Victoria Clements. Boston: Northeastern UP, 2003.
Entry on The Scarlet Letter. Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley Kutler. 10 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003.
“A Book for the Millennial Generation: The Linwoods and Sixty Years Hence in America.” Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society Newsletter 3.1 (2002): 5.
“Endgame: How to Finish up, Saddle up, and Get the Hell out of Dodge.” The Graduate Quill (April/May 2002) 5, 13. [Invited, not refereed.]
"Burned by the Hangman: Puritan Agency and the Road Not Taken." Pynchon Notes 44-45 (1999): 205-213. Published in February, 2002.
“Lexias and Agency in Anne Bradstreet." Studies in Puritan American Spirituality 7 (2001): 1-22.
“Publication: How to Break into Print before You Break out in a Rash.” The Graduate Quill (September 2001): 11-12. [Invited, not refereed.]
“Nostalgia for the Millennium: The View from 2051.” Buffalo News. 7 January 2001. F1,4. [Invited, not refereed.]
“Literary Competence and the Ruling Classes.” UB Today (spring/summer, 2000): 48. [Invited, not refereed.]
"Anne Bradstreet." One-thousand-word entry in American National Biography. 24 volumes.
New York: American Council of Learned Societies and Oxford University Press, 1999.
"From Paradox and Aporia to Cultural Hybridization and Complex Adaptive Systems: New
Theories and the Uses of Cooper at the Present Time." James Fenimore Cooper: His
Country and His Art. Ed. Hugh C. MacDougall. New York: James Fenimore Cooper
Society, 1999. 23-31.
"Teaching Hope to Postmoderns, with Help from CS and Others." Catharine Maria Sedgwick
Society Newsletter 1.1 (1999): 5-7.
"’We Have Really No Country at All': Hawthorne's Reoccupations of History." Arachnē: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Language and Literature 3.1 (1996): 66-88.
"Anne Bradstreet and the Practice of Weaned Affections." DISCovering Authors (CD-
ROM). Detroit: Gale Research, 1996. Rpt. from God's Altar.
"Powers of Humility and the Presence of Readers in Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley."
Studies in Puritan American Spirituality 4 (1993): 1-23.
"Transatlantic Perspectives: Founding Fictions in British-American Literature." American
Literary History 5 (1993): 552-563.
"Engines of Discourse: God and the Odds in Postmodern Literature." Denver Quarterly 27
(1993): 6-16.
"Cooper's Allegories of Reading and `the Wreck of the Past.'" Readers in History: Nineteenth-
Century American Literature and the Contexts of Response. Ed. James L. Machor.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. 109-137.
"Recognizing Early American Literature." Early American Literature 25 (1990): 187-199.
"Liminality and Fiction in Cooper, Hawthorne, Cather, and Fitzgerald." Victor Turner and the
Construction of Cultural Criticism: Between Literature and Anthropology. Ed. Kathleen M. Ashley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. 70-85.
"How We Read Literature and Why It Matters." Denver Quarterly 24 (1989): 97-106.
"The Danforths: Puritan Poets in the Woods of Arcadia." Puritan Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Peter
White. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985. 147-157.
"American Visionary History: The Literary Creation of a Usable Past." The Origins and
Originality of American Culture. Ed. Tibor Frank. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1984. 563-
571.
Entries on Samuel Danforth I, John Danforth, and Samuel Danforth II in the Dictionary of
Literary Biography: American Colonial Writers 1606-1734. Ed. Emory Elliott. Detroit:
Gale Research Company, 1984. 81-86.
"John Gardner and the Emancipation of Genres." The Georgia Review 37 (1983): 420-428.
Rpt. in The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism: Twentieth-Century American
Literature. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
"Puritan Poetics: The World, the Flesh, and God." Early American Literature 12 (1977): 136-
62. Rpt. in Early American Literature: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Michael T.
Gilmore. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1980. In the series, Twentieth Century
Views. Ed. Maynard Mack.
"Dryden's Ode to Anne Killigrew and the Communal Work of Poets." Texas Studies in
Literature and Language 18 (1976): 184-198.
"A Continuous Renaissance: Contemporary American Poetry." Literatura na swieci (1976):
302-312.
"Fideism and the Allusive Mode in ‘Rappaccini's Daughter.'" Nineteenth-Century Fiction 28
(1973): 25-37.
"History and Chivalric Myth in ‘Roger Malvin's Burial.'" Essex Institute Historical Collections
109 (1973): 99-115. Rpt. in The Critical Perspective 8. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York:
Chelsea House, 1989.
"William Bradford's Vision of History." American Literature 44 (1973): 557-569.
Reviews
Liquid Fire: Transcendental Mysticism in the Romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Harvey L.
Gable, Jr. Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 25.2 (1999): 17-20.
The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology, by Wolfgang Iser.
Comparative Literature Studies 32 (1995): 536-539.
Sinful Self, Saintly Self: The Puritan Experience of Poetry, by Jeffrey A. Hammond. Early
American Literature 29 (1994): 96-98.
The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times, 1774-1775, by John Leacock. Ed.
Carla Mulford. American Literature 62 (1990): 503-504.
The Poems of Michael Wigglesworth. Ed. Ronald A. Bosco. Early American Literature 25
(1990): 321-323.
W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet, by A. Norman Jeffares. Poet and Critic 4 (1967): 45-46.
Papers
“Creole Coopers: James and Susan, Literature and Ethics in America.” Keynote Address to the 15th International James Fenimore Cooper Symposium and Summer Course. State University College at Oneonta. 16 June 2005.
“Reading Your Way from Beauty to Ethics: Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Twenty-First Century.” UB This Summer Cutting Edge Lecture Series. 9 June 2005.
“Metanoia: Nineteenth-Century Writers in the Network Culture of Twenty-First Century Readers.” The Resisting Reader, Then and Now: A Symposium in Honor of Judith Fetterley. University at Albany: State University of New York. 6 November 2004.
“Networks of America: Assembling a Nation in The Linwoods.” Catharine Maria Sedgwick Symposium. Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 13 June 2003.
“Leslie Fiedler’s Coming to Iowa.” American Literature Association Convention. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 22 May 2003.
“The Rise and Fall of Individualism in American Literature.” Canisius College. 19 September 2002.
“Nations without Nationalism and Agency without Individualism in Hope Leslie and The Linwoods.” American Literature Association Annual Conference. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 25 May 2001.
“Mischief, Insanity, Memetics, and Agency in The Linwoods; or, ‘Sixty Years Since’ in America.” The Sedgwick Symposium. Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 10 June 2000.
"Lexias and Agency in Anne Bradstreet." Society of Early Americanists Biannual Convention.
Charleston, South Carolina. 5 March 1999.
"Subversion as National Service: Catharine Maria Sedgwick as Canny Navigator on the Many
Seas of Convention." The Sedgwick Symposium. Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 7 June
1997.
"Cooper's Medicine for the Trauma of History." Central New York Conference on Language
and Literature. Cortland, New York. 21 October 1996.
"New Theories for Reading Literature and Life: Or Why We Should Care about Narrative
Therapy, Trauma Theory, Ecocriticism, and Literary Anthropology, as Well as Louise
Rosenblatt and Jean-Luc Nancy." University of Wyoming. 19 June 1996.
"Literary Lessons: What We Learn from Reading." Niagara County Community College. 2
April 1996.
"New Theories and the Uses of Cooper at the Present Time." The Cooper Seminar. Oneonta
and Cooperstown, New York. 14 July 1995.
"`We Have Really No Country at All': Hawthorne's Reoccupations of History." Modern
Language Association. Toronto. 30 December 1993.
"Authoring Subjects." Modern Language Association. Toronto. 27 December 1993.
"Humility to Die For: The Ironies of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley." Modern
Language Association. San Francisco. 27 December 1991.
"On the Threshold of America with Washington Irving's Storytellers." American Literature
Association. San Diego. 2 June 1990.
"Culture and Reading: A Better Road from Theory to Practice." Modern Language
Association. Washington, D.C. 28 December 1989.
"Making Sense of Early American Literature, with a Little Help from Ludwig Wittgenstein."
University of Connecticut. 18 April 1989.
"How We Read Literature and Why It Matters." University of Connecticut. 17 April 1989.
"Early American Literature and Cultural Criticism: From Attempts at Thematic Unity to
Epistemological Connections." Modern Language Association. New Orleans. 28
December 1988.
"Rewriting an American Reader: The Example of James Fenimore Cooper." Modern
Language Association. San Francisco. 30 December 1987.
"Reimagining the Past: The Romantic in America." Hilbert College. 7 October 1987.
"How to Survive in America." Canisius College. 17 April 1986.
"John Gardner and the Epistemology of Myth." Modern Language Association. Chicago. 28
December 1985.
"Another Theory of American Fiction." Louisiana State University. 11 December 1985.
"Liminality and Fiction in Irving, Cooper, Cather, Fitzgerald, and Gardner." Modern
Language Association. Washington, D.C. 28 December 1984.
"Literature and Acculturation in Early America." Modern Language Association.
Washington, D.C. 27 December 1984.
"Liminality and Storytelling in Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Cather." University of Florida.
17 January 1984.
"Literature as History." University of California at Irvine. 15 February 1983.
"How Foundlings Become Founders." Chapman University. 7 January 1982.
"Reading America and Writing It." Modern Language Association. New York. 29 December
1981.
"American Visionary History and the Search for an American Literature." University of East
Anglia. 5 June 1980.
"From Puritanism to the Present: An Important Continuity in American Literature." University
of Bergen. 17 April 1980.
"Puritan Influences on Contemporary American Literature." Copenhagen School of Economics. 15 April 1980.
"`American Literature' as Epistemological Category: From a Puritan Past to an Ethnic Present."
University of Copenhagen. 15 April 1980.
"The Literary Origins of American Culture." Hungarian Academy of the Sciences, Budapest.
11 April 1980.
"Colloquium on American Visionary History." University of California at Santa Barbara.
26 January 1979.
"American Visionary History: The Literary Creation of a Usable Past." University of
California at Berkeley. 25 January 1979.
"Liminality and the Continuing Need for American Visionary History." Modern Language
Association. New York. 28 December 1978.
"Anne Bradstreet and the Poetics of Weaned Affections." Modern Language Association.
New York. 28 December 1978.
"American Visionary History." Modern Language Association. Chicago. 28 December 1976.
"The European Origins of American Visionary History." Plenary session. American
Comparative Literature Association. Philadelphia. 23 April 1976.
"American Literature and an American's Identity." New York State English Council.
Buffalo. 10 October 1975.
"Revising the Classics: The Use of John Seelye's True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
University of Essex. 9 November 1972.
Consulting
Advisory Board, Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society
Board of Directors, James Fenimore Cooper Society
Editorial Board, Cooper and the Early Republic
National Endowment for the Humanities Grant-Review Panelist, Washington D.C., 28-29 April 2004.
Selection Committee for papers to be given at the annual conference of the American Literature Association, Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society, 2002
Outside Evaluator: Department of English, University of Connecticut, 2000
Reader: University of California Press, SUNY Press, University of Tennessee Press, Early
American Literature, PMLA, Comparative Literature Studies, Prose Studies, American
Literary History, National Endowment for the Humanities Media Program
Consultant on Promotions: New York University, Cornell University, UCLA, George Washington University, George Mason University, Colorado State University, Kansas State University, University of Connecticut
Executive Committee, Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools, 1988-89
Richard Beale Davis Prize Committee, 1991 (Chair), 1987
Executive Committee, Division on American Literature to 1800, Modern Language Association,
1983-87 (Chair, 1986)
Editorial Board, Early American Literature, 1980-83
Membership in Professional Associations
Modern Language Association
American Literature Association
Society of Early Americanists
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society, founding member and life member
James Fenimore Cooper Society, member of the Board of Directors
Nathaniel Hawthorne Society
Teaching 1973-
Graduate Seminars
The Puritan Tradition
Definitions of America
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The American Novel
Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Contemporary American Fiction
American Classics and American Culture
Research in American Civilization
The Twentieth-Century American Novel
Undergraduate Courses
Early American Literature
The American Renaissance
Hawthorne
Definitions of America
Major American Writers I & II
American Literature 1865-1914
Biography and Autobiography
American Visionary History
The American Novel
Modern American Fiction
American Literature and Culture
Freshman Composition 101 & 201
Mark Twain and His Contemporaries
Literature of American Democracy
Science, Literature, and Society
The Modern American Novel
Visions of America
American Literature 1828-1865
American Classics and American Culture
Ph.D. Qualifying Examination Committees
Sybil James
Mi-ae Park
Andrea Ross
Howard Bennett
Susan Dix
Stephen Kenney
Cory Ireland
Paula Reynolds
Mary Cappello
Nan Clarkson
Valerie Babb
Jocelyn Sheppard
Stratton Rawson
Pamela Hanks
Laura Laffrado
Michael Hodge
Marc Smith
Jeanne Holland
Douglas Pastel
Douglas Crowell
Terese Hartman
Rita Liotta
Laraine Fleming
Nicole Williams
Cheryl Bell
Madelyn Jablon
Beverly Anne Sanford
Ruth Kirstein
Mary Adams Hilmer
Beverly Crockett
Paul Forte
Maria Francesca Cicardi
Martha Werner
Rebecca Cochran
Kathleen Ferracane
Scott Edelstein
Iris Bleeker
Michael Degnan
Geraldine Struble
David Lund
Amy Cohen
Lucinda Damon
Jan Oelhoeft
John Keavey
Clark Davis
Barbara Porter
Joseph Linzmeier
Piotr Parlej
Marcella Sherman
William Brown
Kandace Lombart
James Martin-Diaz
Charles Jones
Ardeth Evans
Ellen Whittier
Scott Michaelson
Gail Brisson
Katherine Walke
Anthony Hughes
Kathy Phelps
Jennifer Spungin Kehoe
Kristin Dykstra
Hugh Rheingold
Kyunghoon Jung
Elizabeth Dill
Ann Keefer
Beth Snyder
Laurel Ode
René Rojas
Gregory Fowler
Yong-ju Lee
Kyeong-hwa Lee
Kan-anek Jaruraksa
Robert Zamsky
Louise Continelli
Kevin Grauke
Sinikka Grant
Elizabeth Santillo
Robert O. Lopez
Ann Rivera
Charity Vogel
Ray Stone
Ayumi Takagi
John Morsellino
Benjamin Robertson
Sophia Forster
Nora Dooley
Maglina Lubovich
Kevin Pelletier
Christopher Leise
Sangjoon Han
Deveryle James
Nozomi Fujimura
M.A. Qualifying Examination Committees
Ian Stapley
Katharine Stiffler
Jane Marshall
Christopher Teepe
Allison Farrell
Jason Pratt
Kathryn English
Eric Mills
Pamela Emigh-Murphy
Candace Faubert
Ph.D. Dissertations--Director
James Martin-Diaz
Stephen Kenney
Kathleen Boone
Barbara Porter
Michael Degnan
Beverly Anne Sanford
Mary Adams Hilmer
Laura Laffrado
Scott Edelstein
Paula Reynolds
Jeanne Holland
Brenda Brock
George Kelley
Gail Brisson
Naochika Takao
Kathy Phelps
Jennifer Spungin Kehoe
Elizabeth Anne Dill
Makiko Wakabayashi
Gregory Fowler
Zubeda Jalalzai
Kyunghoon Jung
René Rojas
Todd Nothstein
Charity Vogel
Ray Stone
Ann R. Rivera
Sinikka Grant
John Morsellino
Ph.D. Dissertations--Reader
Thomas Stender
Mitchell Breitwieser
Blair Boone
Sandra Duguid
Marilyn Matis
Christopher Lalond
Michael Hodge
Pamela Hanks
John Keavey
Ross Pudaloff
Peter Sidlecki
Terese Hartman
Mark Malonek
Douglas Crowell
Nicole Williams
Rita Liotta
Diane Bonora
Patricia Gannon
Stratton Rawson
Jan Oelhoeft
Piotr Parlej
Rebecca Cochran
Valerie Babb
Beverly Crockett
Elizabeth Shipley
Margaret Henderson
Clark Davis
Michael Pikus
Matthew Goodwin
Martha Werner
Katherine Walke Gillespie
Ann Goldsmith
Robert Durante
Amy Smith
Lucinda L. Damon-Bach
Cynthia Doell
Hugh Rheingold
Ann Keefer
Beth Rheingold
Laurel Ode
Kevin Grauke
Robert O. Lopez
Lori Jacobson
Roumiana Velikova
Robert Zamsky
Lia Vella
Koichi Suwabe
Andrew Sutherland
Kyeonghwa Lee
Elizabeth Santillo
Maglina Lubovich
M.A. Theses--Director
Angelika Ilg
Sheila Rodriguez
Andrea Sullivan
Daniel Weinstein
Shimon Tanaka
Serena Shiuh-huah Chou
Marc Fontanarosa
Charity Vogel
Christopher Teepe
Joomi Kim
Leslie Crowell
Russell Sbriglia
M.A.H. Theses--Director
Paula Reynolds
Amy Rosen
Harry Hawthorne
Katherine Haynie
Donna Dusel
Cecelia Wallin
Jane Harding
Elizabeth Anne Finnegan
Gentre Michael Garmon
Talia Laura Maiyan
Diane Auerbach
Kristen E. Perillo
Laura Wiggins
Honors Theses--Director
Henry Henkel
Elizabeth Fleche
Marc Potolsky
Elizabeth Oldach
David Kessler
Jennifer LaClair
Ann Fox
Patrick Kavanagh
Diana Whipple
Jennifer Ferguson
Laura Quebral
Mitchell Maxick
Robert Wegrzynowski
Alexander Guambana
Rafia Mirza
Ji-Hae Park
Angela Snyder
Elizabeth Massa
Lisa Fanaro
Colleen Britten
Allison N. Ritchie
Aimee Woznick
Ben Cady
Service
Department of English
Administrative Positions
Director of Graduate Studies, 1983-85
Associate Chair, 1980-81
Vice Chair, Director of Teaching Fellows, 1976-77
Other Service
Department Chair Hiring Committee, 2005-2006
Advocate: Hershini Young, Daniel Hack, David Schmid, Alan Spiegel
Representative lecture for English, CAS 101, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003
Chair, Guidelines on Promotion to Tenure Committee, 1999-2000
Undergraduate Advising, 1998-99
Planning Committee, 1997-99
Endowed Chairs Renewal Committee, 1999
Placement Committee for English and Comparative Literature, 1996-99
Graduate Admissions and Fellowships Committee, 1994-95, 1983-85, 1976-77
Departmental Honors Program Selection Committee, 1992-
Graduate Review Committee, l999-2000, 1992-94, 1983-85
Long-Range Planning Committee, 1989-90
Junior Recruitment Committee, 1989-90, 1984-85
Butler Chair Committee, 1986-87
McNulty Chair Search Committee, 1986-87, 1983-84
Executive Committee, 2005-06, 1991-92, 1982-86, 1980-81, 1975-77
Butler Prize Committee, 1990 (chair), 1983, 1982 (chair)
University Open House, 1980-85
Poetry Committee, 1978-79
Senior Recruitment Committee, 1977-79
Summer School Committee, 1983-85, 1976-77
Graduate Scheduling Committee, 1983-85
Graduate Curriculum Committee, 1980-81, 1975-77
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, 1982-83, 1975-79
Library Committee, 1975-79 (chair, 1978-79)
College of Arts and Sciences
Sponsored Research Advisory Board, 2003-2006
Hiring Committee, Comparative Literature, 2002-03
Dean’s Panel, Fellowships and Grants Workshop, 11 December 2002
Dean’s Panel, Promotion and Tenure Workshop, 21 October 2002
Committee on Awards and Recognitions, 2000-2001
Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure Committee, 1999-2002, 1996-99, 1989-90, 1983-84
Presidential Fellowship Selection Committee, 1997
Bylaws Committee, 1992-93
Graduate Divisional Committee, 1983-85, (Summer chair, 1985, 1984)
External Funds Committee, 1984-85
Committee on Tolstoy College, 1983-84
Educational Policy Committee, 1982-85
Search Committee for a Chair, Department of English, 1976
University
Elected Positions
Board of Directors, Campus Club, 1996-98
President, University Faculty Club, 1989-90, Vice President, 1988-89
Administrative Positions
Associate Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education, 1986-89
Associate Dean of the Graduate School, 1985-89
Other Service
Chair, Provost’s Search Committee for the Dean of Arts and Sciences, 2006
Provost’s Task Group on Research Incentives and Support, 2005
Provost’s Working Group on Academic Programs, 2005
Honors Convocation Readings: 12 May 2006, 13 May 2005, 7 May 2004, 9 May 2003
Alumni Association Awards Committee, 2003-2004
Graduate School Fellowships Committee, 2003-2006
Provost's Committee on Honorary Degrees, 1991-2004
Committee on Distinguished Alumni Awards, 2000-2004
Provost's Selection Committee on Distinguished Teaching Professorships, 1999-2001
Provost's Selection Committee on Distinguished Professorships, 1999-2001
University Honors Council, 1998-2006
College of Arts and Sciences Founders Committee: Subcommittee on Personnel, 1998-99
Mentor, University Honors Program, 1985-
Provost's Task Force: "Stresses on Research and Education," Subcommittee on Patterns of
Institutional Support, 1996
Selection Committee, Conferences in the Disciplines, 1996
Selection Committee, Sesquicentennial Projects, 1996
President's Review Board on Faculty Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure, 1996, 1990-
93
University Committee on the Humanities, 1994-96
Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Planning, 1993-96
University Search Committee for a Dean of the Graduate School, 1994-95
Chair, Humanities Institute Task Force, 1990
Graduate Program Evaluation Review Committee, 1989-90
Graduate School Executive Committee, 1985-89 (Chair, 1986-88)
Chair, University Graduate Fellowships Committee, 1985-89
Minority Fellowships Committee, 1987-89
Mark Diamond Fellowship Research Council, 1987-89
Visiting Faculty Housing Committee, 1987-89
Chair, Faculty Club Board of Directors Nominating Committee, 1986-87
Chair, University Language Policy Action Committee, 1985-89
Graduate School Subcommittee on External Evaluation, 1986-87
Graduate School Representative on Recruiting Trips, 1984-89
Screening Committee, Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching,
1987, 1986, 1981
Undergraduate Representative on Recruiting Trips, 1986, 1985
Graduate School Bylaws Committee, 1985-89
Undergraduate College Executive Committee, 1985-88
Arts and Sciences Publicity and Recruitment Subcommittee, 1982-83
University Search Committee for Dean, Faculty of Arts and Letters, 1981
Screening Committee, Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship, 1976-78
Faculty Senate Study Group, 1977
Faculty Senate Library Committee, 1976-79
Faculty Senate Bookstore Committee, 1975-76
Faculty Senate, 1974-77
Community: Lectures and Seminars
“Virtue Ethics in Susan Power’s Grass Dancer.” The Garret Club. October 2006.
“Character Creole: Literature and Ethics in America.” Americanist Colloquium. 8 September 2005.
Sole Faculty Responder to Six Papers, Graduate Americanist Symposium. 11 February 2005.
“The Work of Inspiration.” Department of English Commencement Address. 9 May 2004.
“Slow Reading: Why It Matters, How to Do It, How to Teach It.” UB Center for Teaching Resources. Clemens 120. 14 November 2003.
“The Honors Thesis: Why and How.” University Honors Program. 3 November 2003.
“Leslie Fiedler’s Coming to Iowa.” Come Back to the Raft: A Leslie Fiedler Symposium. UB. 30 October 2003.
“Bringing the Muses Home” Department of English Commencement Address. 11 May 2003.
“Emerson’s Society.” Unitarian Church of Amherst. 13 April 2003.
“Getting Things Done: Literature and Agency in the Information Age.” UB Alumni 50-Year Reunion. 15 June 2001.
Great Books Foundation panel discussion on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Buffalo Historical Society. 18 October 2000.
“Publication: An Outsider’s Guide.” English Graduate Students Association. 10 February 2000.
"Lies, All Lies: Reading Fictions for Fun and Profit." Dean's Lecture Series, College of Arts
and Sciences. 22 November 1999.
"Justice and Representation in The Scarlet Letter." Humanities One Series. University at
Buffalo. 19 October 1999.
"New Ways of Reading, with Toni Morrison and N. Scott Momaday." The Garret Club. 16,
23, and 30 April 1999.
"Publication, Fellowships, and Grants." English Graduate Students Association. 28 April
1999.
"The ‘Applicable Technology' of Literary Learning in Nathaniel Hawthorne's `My Kinsman,
Major Molineux.'" Humanities One Series. University at Buffalo. 29 September 1998.
"Lexia and Agency in Literature and Life." Horizons Lecture. 15 September 1998.
"Publishing in Scholarly Journals." English Graduate Student Association. 10 December
1997.
"The `Applicable Technology' of Literature." Humanities One Series. University at Buffalo.
23 September 1997.
"William Butler Yeats: The Poetry of Life and the Life of Poetry." Garret Club. 1, 8, and 15
March 1996.
"Stories and Lives, Meanings and Nations: Or, Why We Bother Reading Things that People Just
Make Up." Inaugural Lecture, Provost's Distinguished Professor Series. University at
Buffalo. 20 February 1996.
"At Home in America: The Journeys of Nathaniel Hawthorne." Garret Club. 7, 14, and 21
January 1994.
"The Powers of Tradition and the Heroism of Wit: Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Edith Wharton,
and Dorothy Parker." Garret Club. 27 March, 3 and 10 April 1992.
"The Humanities of Science." National Science Foundation Distinguished Lecturers Series.
Roswell Park Memorial Institute. 25 June 1991.
"The Human Values of a Life in Science." National Science Foundation Distinguished
Lecturers Series. Roswell Park Memorial Institute. 3 July 1990.
"Science, Literature, and Society." Emeritus Association, SUNY/Buffalo. 12 and 19 April, 3 and 10 May 1990.
"Mary Rowlandson, Willa Cather, and Emily Dickinson." Garret Club. 12, 19, and 26
January 1990.
"Dorothy Parker and the Heroism of Wit." The Thursday Book Club of The Twentieth
Century Club. 6 April 1989.
"The Dangers of Self and the Need for Alterity." Keynote Address to the Conference on Cross-
Cultural Communication, The International Institute. 5 November 1988.
"Uncommon Commonplaces: Buffalo Seminary Commencement Address." Westminster
Presbyterian Church. 4 June 1987.
"How We Read Literature and Why It Matters." Doylestown Lions Club. 17 March 1987.
"The Liberations of Culture in Susan Allen Toth's Ivy Days and Blooming." The Thursday
Book Club of the Twentieth Century Club. 5 February 1987.
"Children of the Word: The Puritan Founding of America." Highland Park Baptist Church.
13 August 1986.
"Living with Fiction in Willa Cather's My Antonia." Westminster Presbyterian Church. 25
May 1986.
"Reflections in a Compound Eye: Fiction and the Founding of America." Westminster
Presbyterian Church. 18 May 1986.
"A Chronology of the Research Essay." Faculty Workshop. West Seneca East Senior High
School. 10 March 1986.
"Liminality and Fiction in American Culture." Buffalo Seminary. 5 November 1985.
"American Classics and American Culture." Buffalo Seminary. 13 March 1985.
"The Practical Value of the Arts and Sciences." Conference on What Teachers Should Know.
SUNY/Buffalo. 5 February 1985.
"Hawthorne and Iser on History and Fiction." Nichols School. 13 November 1984.
"Cubism, Epistemology, Ontic Commitments, Semiotics, and Just Growing Up in Padgett
Powell's Edisto." The Thursday Book Club of the Twentieth Century Club. 1 November
1984.
"John Gardner and the Freedom of Art." Unitarian Church of Buffalo. 21 August 1983.
"The American Puritans and the Word of God." Highland Park Baptist Church. 30 March
1983.
"The Vergilian Quest in American Poetry." The Twentieth Century Club. 23 February 1983.
"Thoreau's Religion." Unitarian Church of Buffalo. 14 November 1982.
"`The Rock Foundations of America.'" Emeritus Association. SUNY/Buffalo. 9 November
1982.
"The Uses of Education in Mickelsson's Ghosts." The Thursday Book Club of The
Twentieth-Century Club. 4 November 1982.
"Imagining America." Intensive English Language Institute. SUNY/Buffalo. 28 April 1982.
"How Foundlings Become Founders." The Twentieth Century Club. 17 February 1982.
"Our `Foundling Fathers' and the Real American Tradition." Unitarian Church of Buffalo. 5
July 1981.
"Finding the Right Name for the Past in Freddy's Book, `Rumpelstiltzkin,' and Other Recent
Work by John Gardner." The Thursday Book Club of the Twentieth Century Club. 5
February 1981.
"American Uniqueness: A European Import?" The English-Speaking Union. 12 December
1980.
"Liminality in American Literature." Nichols School. 22 September 1980.
"The Ironies of Millard Fillmore and His College." Awards Ceremony, Millard Fillmore
College. 6 May 1979.
"A Sense of Time, Place, and Community: A Lecture Including Reviews of The Stories of John
Cheever and Lauren Bacall by Myself." The Thursday Book Club of the Twentieth
Century Club. 5 May 1979.
"A Fan's View of The Silmarillion." Inaugural lecture in the series Scholars Scan the Sellers.
SUNY/Buffalo. 21 March 1979.
"Literature as an Alternative World." Emeritus Association. SUNY/Buffalo. 15 March 1979.
"Poetry after 1950." Albright-Knox Art Gallery. 8 March 1978.
"Tolkien's Need for Middle Earth, and Ours." The Thursday Book Club of The Twentieth
Century Club. 6 April 1978.
"How Tolkien Made a World of Words." Amherst Senior Citizens Center. 3 March 1978.
"A Reader's Guide to Britain." The Twentieth Century Club. 22 February 1978.
"English Land and English Literature." Buffalo Seminary Graduates Association. 16
December 1977.
"Growing up in America." Amherst Senior Citizens Center. 15 March 1977.
"American Visionary History." Buffalo Seminary Graduates Association. 11 March 1977.
"Childhood in Colonial New England." Given to Mrs. Rubeck's fourth-grade class at
Windermere Boulevard Elementary School. 9 December 1976.
"Acculturation in America: A Lecture Including Reviews of Loren Eiseley's All the Strange
Hours and Larry Woiwode's Beyond the Bedroom Wall: A Family Album." The Study
Club of the Twentieth Century Club. 8 April 1976.
"Books for the Bicentennial: A Lecture Including Reviews of Linda Pastan's Aspects of Eve,
Richard Hugo's What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American, and Carl Dennis's A House of
My Own." MacAlpine Presbyterian Church. 18 January 1976.
"America and the History of the Future: A Reconsideration of the Pilgrim Thanksgiving." The
Twentieth Century Club. 5 November 1975.
"Creating an American Culture: A Lecture Including Reviews of Mary Helen Dohan's Our Own
Words, William O. Douglas's Go East, Young Man, and E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime."
Amherst Reading Club. 9 October 1975.
"America at the Bicentennial: A Lecture Including Reviews of Edmund Morgan's The Birth of
the American Republic, Daniel J. Boorstin's An American Primer, Gary Snyder's Turtle
Island, and James Wright's Two Citizens." Amherst Book Club. 2 October 1975.
"Anne Bradstreet and Annie Dillard: Pilgrims in Nature." The Culture Club of Kenmore. 9
May 1975.
"Defining an American Culture: A Lecture Including Reviews of Galway Kinnell's The Avenue
Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World, Robert Lowell's History, William
Stafford's Someday, Maybe, and John Gardner's Nickel Mountain." The Twentieth
Century Club. 26 February 1975.
"Toward an American Identity: A Lecture Including Reviews of Michael Kammen's People of
Paradox, Larzer Ziff's Puritanism in America, and Alistair Cooke's America." Amherst
Book Club. 3 October 1974.