| Ryan C. Cordell |
| Assistant Professor of English and Director of Writing-Across-the-Curriculum, St. Norbert College // ProfHacker // Curator, celestialrailroad.org // |
| Curriculum Vitae| Teaching Philosophy| About Me| Posts| Dissertation Abstract| Bibliography| Schedule| Classes |
Curriculum Vitae |
| Ryan Cordell |
| Assistant Professor of English and Director of Writing-Across-the-Curriculum |
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St. Norbert College // Mulva Library 302 // De Pere, WI 54115 ryan.cordell@snc.edu |
| Education |
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Ph.D., English Language and Literature, University of Virginia, August 2010 B.A., English Language and Literature, magna cum laude, The George Washington University, 2004 |
| Dissertation |
| Committee: Stephen Railton (director), Jerome McGann, Victoria Olwell, Heather Warren |
| In my dissertation, “That Great Burning Day”: Apocalyptic in Antebellum Literature and Culture, I investigate the intersections of apocalyptic rhetoric and symbolism in literary and popular fiction (Stowe, Hawthorne, Cooper, Thoreau, Melville, Poe, and Lippard), theological texts, sermons, and religious newspapers before the Civil War. Most literary studies of antebellum American apocalyptic have neglected its immediate historical and cultural roots in nineteenth-century evangelical eschatology, while most studies of nineteenth-century evangelical eschatology have neglected the imaginative engagement of period writers with the apocalyptic. I attempt to amend both oversights, using the prominence of the apocalyptic across period genres, authors, and ideologies to think about how scholars understand and constitute boundaries between sacred and secular texts‐boundaries that are unclear in nineteenth-century works. I argue that apocalyptic rhetoric and symbolism bleed in, among, and between nearly all aspects of antebellum written culture, and that antebellum authors and preachers interpreted emerging secular dogmas such as nationalism, reform, technology, and progress through apocalyptic “signs of the times.” |
| Awards |
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Thomas J. Griffis Prize for the Best Essay by a Student Beyond the First Year of Graduate Work in English, for “‘Taken Possession of’: Hawthorne’s ‘Celestial Railroad’ in the Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Canon,” 2010. SHANTI Exploratory Cohort Fellowship, for technical training, initial design, and help implementing a digital edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Celestial Railroad” (forthcoming at celestialrailroad.org), 2009-10. Buckner W. Clay Endowment for the Humanities Summer Research Grant, for startup research work for celestialrailroad.org, Summer 2009 Tane Travel Scholarship, for travel to the Bicentennial Poe Conference in October 2009 |
| Publications |
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“‘Enslaving You, Body and Soul’: The Uses of Temperance in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and ‘Anti-Tom’ Fiction,” Studies in American Fiction (Spring 2008) “Alcohol and Temperance” and “Harriet Beecher Stowe,” Encyclopedia of the Early Republic and Antebellum America, M. E. Sharpe (forthcoming, August 2010) |
| In Progress |
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| Public Writing |
| Core contributor to ProfHacker at the Chronicle of Higher Education. |
| Digital Projects |
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Researcher, designer, and curator of celestialrailroad.org, a comparative digital edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Celestial Railroad,” 2008-present Newsletter and Website Editor, Harriet Beecher Stowe Society, news.stowesociety.org, 2006-present |
| Conferences |
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“‘Taken Possession of’: What Digital Archives Can Teach Us about Nathaniel Hawthorne, Religious Readers, and Antebellum Reprinting Culture,” Modern Language Association Convention, “Analog and Digital: Texts, Contexts, and Networks” panel, January 2011 (upcoming), Los Angeles, California “‘This Flattering Millennium Theory’: Denominationalism Against Millennialism in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Crater,” Millennialism and Providentialism in the Era of the American Civil War Conference, October 2010 (upcoming), Rice University, Houston, Texas “Theorizing an Online, Interactive Red Schoolhouse (and Pouring Its Foundations),” Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, July 2010, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship, University of Virginia Scholars’ Lab and the National Endowment for the Humanities, May 2010, Charlottesville, Virginia “‘Taken Possession of’: Hawthorne’s ‘Celestial Railroad’ in the Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Canon,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Inaugural Conference, “Nineteenth-Century American Literature and New Media” panel, May 2010, State College, Pennsylvania “Digital Archives and Future Bibliographies,” University of Virginia Bibliographic Society Annual Meeting, Pre-Doctoral Scholars’ Forum, May 2010, Charlottesville, VA “‘Coming to an End for Certain’: Apocalyptic Skepticism in Poe and Lippard,” Poe Studies Association’s Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference (The Bicentennial), “Poe, Lippard, and Place” panel, October 2009, Philadelphia “Thoreau’s Walden and Freshman Comp,” American Literature Association (ALA), “Teaching Thoreau in the Twenty-First Century” roundtable sponsored by the Thoreau Society May 2008, San Francisco Moderator and respondent for the “Harriet Beecher Stowe and Nineteenth-Century Religious Communities” panel, sponsored by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Society, ALA, May 2008, San Francisco “‘The Light Which Puts Out Our Eyes’: The Spring Apocalypse in Thoreau’s Walden,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA), “Promethean Visions and Communities of Belief in Nineteenth-Century American Literature” panel, November 2007, Bellingham, WA “‘Dim and Wondrous Imagery’: Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the End of Time,” Popular and American Culture Associations of the South (PCAS/ACAS), “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Antebellum Culture” panel, September 2007, Jacksonville, FL “‘Mas’r isn’t good to himself’: Temperance Rhetoric in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” ALA, “Future Directions in Stowe Scholarship” panel, sponsored by the Stowe Society, May 2006, San Francisco |
| Invited Talks |
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“Mining for Hawthorne,” Scholars’ Lab Digital Therapy Luncheon, February 2010. Panelist, Professionalization Workshop on Academic Publication, University of Virginia Slavic Department, December 2009. |
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