Faculty at the EMC
Curriculum Vitae
Ken Hiltner
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
 

Education:

Harvard University, English, A.M. 2004, PhD. 2006.
Dissertation: "Renaissance Ecology: Environmental Consciousness and Crises in English Literature."
Rutgers University, Liberal Studies, M.A. 2002.
Thesis: "The Ecological Importance of Place in Milton's Poetry." (A revised version of this thesis was published in 2003 by Cambridge UP as the book Milton and Ecology.)
Rutgers University, English, B.A. 1992.

Publications:

Books:

  • Milton and Ecology. (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
  • Renaissance Ecology: Imagining Eden in Milton's England. Edited and Introduced by Ken Hiltner (Duquesne University Press: forthcoming January 2008).

Articles:

  • "Dread, Technology, and Eve's Fall in Paradise Lost." Currently being revised, at their request, for Explorations in Renaissance Culture.
  • "Shirley and the Luddites." Forthcoming from Bronte Studies.
  • "'Belch'd fire and rowling smoke': Air Pollution in Paradise Lost." In Milton, Rights and Liberties. Essays from the Eighth International Milton Conference. (L'Harmattan, 2006).
  • "Ripeness: Thoreau's Critique of Technological Modernity," In The Concord Saunterer, Special Walden Sesquicentennial Issue, Ed. Richard J. Schneider. (The Walden Society, 2004).
  • "The Ecological Importance of Place in Paradise Lost." In American Literary Criticism Now, Ed. Radojka Vukcevic. (University of Montenegro Press, 2004).
  • "A Defense of Milton's Environmentalism." English Language Notes 40.3 (March 2003): 11-24.
  • "The Portrayal of Eve in Paradise Lost: Genius at Work." In Milton Studies 40, Ed. Albert Labriola. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001) 61-80.
  • "Because I, Persephone, Could Not Stop for Death: Emily Dickinson and the Goddess." The Emily Dickinson Journal 9.2 (Fall 2001): 22-44.
  • "Place, Body and Spirit Joined: The Earth-Human Wound in Paradise Lost." Milton Quarterly 35 (May 2001): 113-117.
  • "The Other Self in a Reunified Germany: Reconsidering Peter Schneider's The Wall Jumper." The Journal of GLS 6.2 (Spring 2001): 53-69.

Selected Presentations:

  • "Is Paradise Lost? John Milton and the Contemporary Christian Debate Over Global Warming," MLA, Chicago Il, December 2007.
  • "The Renaissance Origins of Our Contemporary Attitude Toward Air Pollution," 2007 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2007.
  • "England's First Levellers and Diggers," MLA, Philadelphia, PA, December 2006.
  • Invited speaker, "Environmental Protest Literature of the Seventeenth Century," Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, February 2006.
  • "What Else is Pastoral?" 2005 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2005.
  • "'Belch'd fire and rowling smoke': Air Pollution in Paradise Lost," Eighth International Milton Conference, Grenoble, France, June 2005.
  • "Ecocriticism and the Practice of Reading," Northeast MLA, Cambridge, MA, April 2005.
  • "Spenser, Empire and Ecology," Conference on "Enemies of Empire," University of Limerick, Ireland, June 2004.
  • "The Ecological Importance of Place in Paradise Lost," The International Milton Congress, Pittsburgh, PA, March 2004.
  • "Toni Morrison's Paradise and Exile in Paradise Lost," 2003 Conference on John Milton, Murfreesboro, TN, October 2003.
  • "Reading Julian of Norwich Greenly," Conference on "Early English Women Writers," Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 2003.
  • "Con-fusing Paradise Regained," Seventh International Milton Conference, Beaufort, SC, June 2002.

Selected Academic Service (UCSB):

2008-09, Director, Early Modern Center at UCSB
2007-08, Director, Literature and the Environment at UCSB
2006-08, Member, Graduate Committee
2006-08, Member, Early Modern Center
2006-08, Member, Making Publics Group
2006-07, Co-Coordinator, Hannah Arendt Reading Group
(Currently I am seeking a joint appointment in the Environmental Studies department at UCSB)

Selected Honors and Awards:

Bowdoin Prize, "The Not-So-Green View from Cooper's Hill," 2005
Finalist for the Joseph R. Levenson Teaching Award, 2005
Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, three-time consecutive recipient: 2004-2006
Conference Grant for Harvard University's Humanities Center's annual interdisciplinary graduate conference, sponsored in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2003-04
English Prize Fellowship: 2002-03, 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06
Alumni Award for Most Distinguished Scholar, 2002
James Sanderson Award for "The Most Outstanding Graduate English Paper":
  • 2002, "The Temptations of a Daughterless Mother: Jane Eyre and the Feminist / Postcolonial Dilemma"
  • 2001, "The Wounded Earth: Milton's Deconstruction of Christianity"

    • Teaching Experience:

    Graduate (UCSB)

  • "Theories of Literature and the Environment" (Winter 2008), this course considers theories of the relationship that human beings have had with the environment from the pre-Socratic philosophers through 21st-century ecocritical writers.
  • "Milton and His Contemporaries" (Fall 2006), a graduate seminar on Milton's poetry and prose from within the turbulent political context of seventeenth-century England.

    • Undergraduate (UCSB)

  • "Introduction to the Study of Literature and the Environment" (Spring 2008), approaches a range of familiar texts from an ecocritical perspective.
  • "Milton and Ecology" (Spring 2008), explores a range of Milton's poetry, focusing primarily on Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Sampson Agonistes from an ecocritical perspective.
  • "English 101" (Winter 2008), a survey of English literature from Beowulf through Milton, with emphasizes on political and religious contexts, as well as gender and the environment.
  • "Ecocriticism and the Writing of Nature" (Fall 2006), an ecocritical approach to Western literature from The Myth of Gilgamesh through Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.
  • "Metaphysical Poetry" (Winter 2007), upper level undergraduate seminar introducing the major themes of the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Vaughan, and others.
  • "Renaissance Pastoral" (Winter 2007), a study of pastoral literature from Theocritus through the twentieth century, with emphasis on Renaissance uses of this mode of writing.

    • Teaching Fellow (Harvard)

  • "Major British Writers I" (Fall 2004, Fall 2005), an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature through the reading of major works from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to Paradise Lost.
  • "Major British Writers II" (Spring 2006), an introduction to the study of British literature from the early 18th century to the present.
  • "Milton" (Fall 2005), a comprehensive study of Milton's life, poetry (lyric, dramatic, and epic), and major prose tracts.
  • "Metaphysics of the Metaphysical Poets" (Spring 2005), a course devoted the major lyric poets of the seventeenth century.

    • Teaching Interests:

    Classical through Renaissance literature, literature and the environment, and literary theory.

    Other Interests:

    Prior to my academic career, I made my living as a furniture-maker. As a second-generation woodworker, I received commissions from five continents and had collections featured in major metropolitan galleries.