Lucas Nossaman, PhD

“I can only answer the question, ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question, ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” –Alasdair MacIntyre

• Teaching & Education

  I teach the honors course titled “The Christian Imagination in Literature,” general education courses in writing and literature, and upper-level English courses on American literature and Southern literature.

  • PhD, English, The University of Tennessee
  • MA, English, Literature concentration, North Carolina State University
  • BA, English, Harding University
• Professional Experience

  Before entering my doctoral program, I taught middle-school and high-school English in private and public schools. I continue to score AP Literature essays for College Board.

• Selected Publications

  Forthcoming Book

  Divine Cosmos: Humboldt’s Ecology in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (under contract with Bloomsbury Academic).

  Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • “Agriculture and Biblical Tradition in Jewett’s ‘A Dunnet Shepherdess.’” Christianity and Literature 64.4 (Sept. 2015): 400-413. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/738736.
  •  “The Wisdom of ‘The Farm’: Sabbath Theology and Wendell Berry’s Pastoralism.” Renascence 70.1, Winter 2018. https://doi.org/10.5840/renascence20187012.
  • “Writing a Wondrous Earth: Susan Fenimore Cooper’s Episcopalian Ecology.” J19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 10.2, Fall 2022, https://doi.org/10.1353/jnc.2022.0021.
  • “‘Forest Christian,’ a Poet of the River Lands: Wendell Berry in Appalachia.” Chapter in Appalachian Ecocriticism and the Paradox of Place, edited by Jessica Cory and Laura Wright (U of Georgia P, 2023).
  • “The Cosmic Natural Theology of Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom.” Forthcoming in Religion and Literature.

   

  Book Reviews

  • Review of Loving God’s Wildness: The Christian Roots of Ecological Ethics in American Literature, by Jeffrey Bilbro. Christianity and Literature 65.3, June 2016. muse.jhu.edu/article/738620.
  • Review of Henry David Thoreau: A Life, by Laura Dassow Walls. Christianity and Literature 67.3, June 2018. muse.jhu.edu/article/735886.
  • Review of Approaching Jonathan Edwards: The Evolution of a Persona, by Carol Ball. Christianity and Literature 68.4, Sept. 2019. muse.jhu.edu/article/735200.
  • Review of When I Came to Die: Process and Prophecy in Thoreau’s Vision of Dying, by Audrey Raden. Nineteenth-Century Prose 46.2, Fall 2019.
  • Review of Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, Volume 1 and 2: A Critical Edition, by Alexander von Humboldt, edited by Vera M. Kutzinski and Ottmar Ette. Early American Literature 57.2, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1353/eal.2022.0056.

   

  Public Writing

  • I write occasional essays and reviews for Front Porch Republic: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/author/lnossaman/.
• Selected Awards Received
  • 2022-2023, NGU Faculty Scholarship Award
  • 2020-2021, The University of Tennessee Humanities Center, Resident Graduate Fellow
  • 2020 Thoreau County Conservation Association Graduate Student Fellowship ($1000 awarded for Thoreau-related research in greater Boston area)
  • 2019-2020, Percy Adams Research Assistantship, UTK English department
  • 2016-2020, The University of Tennessee Chancellor’s Fellowship
• My Network

  I am involved with several literary studies societies, including Christianity and Literature, the Thoreau Society, and C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists.

• My Story

  In my teaching and writing, I strive to be faithful to the theological, historical, and aesthetic contexts of literature. In this work I often find myself questioning broad assumptions about literature and secularization. I am particularly interested in the ways that writers of various religious backgrounds can reflect Christian truth.

• Related Links

  lucasnossaman.wordpress.com