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Tom J. Hillard

Professor

Dr. Hillard joined the faculty at Boise State University in 2007, after earning his PhD at the University of Arizona. He regularly teaches courses on American literature, especially in the early periods, with a particular emphasis on Gothic literature as well as environmental literary studies. His current research and scholarship explores the development of Gothic fiction in the early United States, and he is working on several related textual editing, bibliographical, and book history projects. Recent publications include work on Nathaniel Hawthorne, as well as essays in Gothic Nature Journal and the volumes Ecogothic in Nineteenth-century American Literature (Routledge, 2018) and EcoGothic (Manchester University Press, 2013). He co-edited (with Amy T. Hamilton) the book Before the West Was West: Critical Essays on Pre-1800 Literature of the American Frontiers (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). From 2011-2018, he served as Book Review Editor for the Oxford University Press journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.

Education

  • Ph.D., English, University of Arizona
  • M.A., English, Literature and Environment, University of Nevada
  • B.A., English, Boise State University

Interests

Early American and 19th-century American literature, Gothic literature, textual editing and bibliographical studies, environmental literary studies

Recent Publications

  • “Burying the Body: Pandemic and Public Health in Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables.” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 47.1 (2021) 1-25.
  • “Gothic Nature Revisited: Reflections on the Gothic of Ecocriticism.” Gothic Nature: New Directions in Ecohorror and the Ecogothic 1 (2019): 21-33.
  • “‘Perverse Nature’: Anxieties of Animality and Environment in Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly.” Ecogothic in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Ed. Dawn Keetley and Matthew Wynn Sivils. New York: Routledge, 2017. 21-36.
  • “From Salem Witch to Blair Witch: The Puritan Influence on American Gothic Nature.” EcoGothic. Ed. Andrew Smith and William Hughes. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2013. 103-119.

Courses

  • ENGL 275 Methods of Literary Studies
  • ENGL 277 Survey of American Literature I
  • ENGL 375 Early American Literature
  • ENGL 377 American Renaissance
  • ENGL 394 Literature and Environment
  • ENGL 424 Advanced Seminar: American Gothic Literature
  • ENGL 498 Capstone in Literary Studies
  • ENGL 500 Research Methods in Literary Studies
  • ENGL 510 Major Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • ENGL 530 Literary Period: American Gothic Literature

Additional Websites