James Egan
Professor of English:
English
Phone: +1 401 863 3737
James_Egan@Brown.EDU
Professor Egan has published Oriental Shadows: The Presence of the East in Early American Literature (2011) and Authorizing Experience: Refigurations of the Body Politic in Seventeenth-Century New England Writing (1999). His other publications include an essay exploring figures of the East in John Smith's travel narratives, as well as one examining the figure of Alexander the Great in Anne Bradstreet's poetry. In addition to these writings, Professor Egan has published on Ebenezer Cooke, 18th-century Transatlantic mercantile poetry, and Benjamin Franklin.
Biography
Professor Egan came to Brown in 1991 after receiving his PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1999, he published, Authorizing Experience: Refigurations of the Body Politic in Seventeenth-Century New England Writing. In 2011, he published Oriental Shadows: The Presence of the East in Early American Literature.
Interests
Professor Egan's work includes the following:
- 17th- and 18th-century British-American writing;
- the history of the book;
- the early modern Atlantic world;
- colonial British-American Orientalism; and
- early modern theories of identity.
Degrees
Ph.D. UC Santa Barbara 1991M.A. San Francisco State University 1985B.A. UC Santa Cruz 1983
Awards
N/A
Affiliations
Society of Early Americanists
Modern Language Association
American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies
Teaching
I teach courses on American literature before the Civil War, with a special emphasis on literature produced before 1800. My courses cover a range of topics, from EL0131, "American Degenerates," EL0131, "Inventing Race in America," EL0151, "The Literature of the American South," to EL0131, "Monsters, Giants, and Fantastic Landscapes in Early American Literature," to EL 41, "Devils, Demons, and Do-Gooders."
Funded Research
N/A
Curriculum Vitae
