The above photo was taken during my course in Melville and the Arts during the 1996 Spring Semester at Northern Kentucky University. The students in that course taught me to make a web site. To see some of what they achieved in that course (as well as in its Spring 1997 sequel) visit our group home page Moby and the Net.
I am a native of Everett, Washington. I attended Whitman College and Columbia University before arriving at NKU as an assistant professor in 1972. I enjoy teaching writing courses and literature courses, as well as those that compare literature with other arts. Most of my research derives from courses I have taught. My books on Jane Austen and Mozart (1983) and Emily Bronte and Beethoven (1986) evolved from the Music and Literature course. Those on Melville and Turner (1992) and on Frank Stella's Moby Dick (2001) have evolved from courses in Literature and Painting and in Melville and the Arts. My book on Douglass and Melville (2005) derived from the course in those two authors that I first taught in 2003. My current research project is a book that will bring together more than 420 prints and engravings that I have documented from Herman Melville's art collection.
Beginning in 1989, students in my English 151 and 291 classes have produced class magazines to showcase their own work and booklets to document world premiere plays in NKU's biennial Y. E. S. Play Festival. Beginning in 1994, students in various literature classes have created a variety of art works in response to the literature we have read. (See the website created by students in my Fall 2001 class in Emily Dickinson and Henry James at http://www.nku.edu/~emily.) Since 2001, I have been Senior Faculty Advisor to NKU's Institute for Freedom Studies and initiated our annual Freedom Studies Student Art and Writing Contests.
Literature courses I have taught most recently include Dickinson and James; Douglass and Melville; Melville and the Arts (crosslisted with Honors 303), and Cross-Cultural Exploration (in a Learning Community with Tom Zaniello, Honors). Since 1998 most of my ENG 151 courses have been Learning Community courses in Exploring the Arts paired with Art Appreciation.
I am a past president of the Melville Society and a founding member of the Melville Society Cultural Project in New Bedford, where I initiated the idea of the International Conference on Douglass and Melville that was held in June 2005. I am also a fan of NKU's women's basketball team and followed the team closely during the 2006-07 season and hope to be able to share with readers some of what they achieved.
You can contact me at: wallacer@nku.edu