![Clark Davis](/sites/default/files/2022-11/engl-clark-davis.jpg)
Clark Davis
Professor
303-871-2900 (Office)
http://portfolio.du.edu/cldavis
Sturm Hall, 2000 East Asbury Avenue Denver, CO 80208
What I do
Professor of English and Literary ArtsSpecialization(s)
American literature, literary biography
Professional Biography
I've been teaching courses in early and pre-Civil War American literature for over thirty years, and I am the author of the following books: After the Whale: Melville in the Wake of Moby Dick (Alabama 1995); Hawthorne's Shyness: Ethics, Politics, and the Question of Engagement (Johns Hopkins, 2005); It Starts with Trouble: William Goyen and the Life of Writing (Texas, 2015); and the forthcoming God's Scrivener: The Madness and Meaning of Jones Very (Chicago, 2023).
Degree(s)
- Ph.D., English and American Literature, SUNY-Buffalo, 1992
- BA, English, Rice University, 1986
Professional Affiliations
- Hawthorne Society
- Modern Language Association
Research
My current work is focused on romantic individualism, messianic impulses, and anticipatory modernism in the antebellum period. My current project is a critical memoir focusing on grief and life of the object as related to the work of Edgar Allan Poe.
Areas of Research
American literature
literary biography
Herman Melville
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Transcendentalism
American Modernism.
Featured Publications
Davis, Clark. “Emerson's Telescope: Jones Very And Romantic Individualism.” The Soul Of Quiet: Jones Very And American Romanticism. New England Quarterly, (2018).
Davis, Clark. It Starts With Trouble: William Goyen And The Life Of Writing. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. 2015.
Davis, Clark. Hawthorne's Shyness: Ethics, Politics, And The Question Of Engagement. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2005.
Davis, Clark. After The Whale: Melville In The Wake Of Moby-Dick. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. 1995.
Presentations
Davis, Clark. “Guy Davenport's '1830': Poe And The Art Of Assemblage ” International Poe/Hawthorne Conference, Japan, Kyoto, Japan, Poe and Hawthorne Societies, 2018.
Awards
- Publishers' Weekly Best Books of 2015, Publishers' Weekly
- Elizabeth Agee Prize in American Literature, University of Alabama Press