Gary Williams
Research/Focus Areas
  • 19th century American literature
  • Transatlantic literary currents
  • 20th/21st century fiction
  • Intersections between the humanities and the sciences.
My Courses
  • English 490, Senior Seminar
  • English 404, Imagining Science (special topic)
  • English 560, Studies in 19th Century American Literature
  • English 258, Masterpieces of Western Literature II

Gary Williams

College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences
Department of English
Professor and Department Chair

Home Town
Billings, Montana

Campus Locations
  • Moscow
With UI Since
1973
Office: Brink 200
Phone: (208) 885-6156
Email: Gary Williams
Mailing Address:
Department of English - University of Idaho
P.O. Box 441102
Moscow, Idaho 83844-1102

English 490
Imagining Science 2009
  • Ph.D., Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), 1973, English (concentration in American literature and intellectual history)
  • M.A., Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), 1972, English
  • A.B., Washington University (St. Louis), 1969, English

Gary Williams grew up in Billings, Montana, in a working-class family.  In graduate school his areas of emphasis were colonial/19th-century American literature/intellectual history and 20th-century British and American fiction.  His dissertation focused on James Fenimore Cooper, and he was involved for more than a decade in efforts to produce definitive textual editions of Cooper’s works for the State University of New York Press.

He has been a member of the English department at the University of Idaho since 1973. He was chair of the department from 1986 to 1996 and an inaugural College of Letters and Science Humanities Fellow in 1998-99.  He was part of the task force that developed the university’s Core Curriculum and has served as chair of the University Committee for General Education.  In 2007-08 he was honored by selection as the university's first Distinguished Humanities Professor. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS*
  • The Literary Emergence of Julia Ward Howe (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999)
  • The Hermaphrodite by Julia Ward Howe (edition with introduction, University of Nebraska Press, 2004)

 

CURRENT PROJECTS* 

  • Philosophies of Sex: New Essays on The Hermaphrodite (edited with Renee Bergland; in process)
  • George Sand and Margaret Fuller: "Expansive Fellowship.” (in process; part of larger study of Sand’s impact on 19th-century American intellectuals)

 

HONORS & AWARDS*

  • Distinguished Humanities Professor, 2007-08
  • University of Idaho Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2001
  • Sigma Tau Delta Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, 1999
  • Alumni Awards for Excellence in Teaching, 1986, 1988, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2005
  • ASUI Outstanding Faculty Award, 1980


    *See CV for full listings of publications, research, outreach and awards.