Faculty & Staff
Alex Bruce 
Adjunct Assistant Professor of English and Associate Dean of Students
A 1989 graduate of Sewanee, Alexander M. Bruce returned to his alma mater in 2008 as Associate Dean of Students. With both an MA and Ph.D. in medieval studies from The University of Georgia, he teaches Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature and is an occasional lecturer in the Humanities program. He has published two books and more than fifteen articles on such diverse topics as Germanic mythology, English linguistics, Tolkien studies, folklore studies, and pedagogy.
Tam (Thomas) M. Carlson
Professor of English
Thomas Carlson graduated from Sewanee in 1963, received his M.A. and Ph.D degrees at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and returned to The University of The South in 1970 to teach English and American literature. His upper level courses focus on 20th and 21st century American fiction.
William E. Clarkson
Professor of English
(retiring after Advent 2011 semester) Bill Clarkson was born in Hartford, Connecticut and graduated from the Loomis School and Yale University. He received his M.A and Ph.D degrees from the University of Virginia. At Sewanee he teaches courses in modern poetry, in modern and contemporary fiction, and he always enjoys reading Shakespeare with first year students.
Virginia O. Craighill
Visiting Professor of English
Virginia Ottley Craighill has been teaching at Sewanee since 2001 and is also a graduate of the University of the South (C’82), the University of Georgia, and the University of Texas at Austin. Her interests range from 19th century and modern American literature to literary journalism, creative non-fiction, and women’s literature.
William E. Engel
Professor of English
Professor Engel received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and specializes in medieval and Renaissance literature with an eye toward the history of ideas—especially the Art of Memory and chiastic designs. He has published chapters in collections of essays on topics that include Chaucer’s use of Boethius, Shakespeare’s historical context, Milton’s use of Anglo-Saxon, and Poe’s cryptography.
John Gatta
Dean of the College and Professor of English
John Gatta’s teaching and research have largely been concerned with American literary and cultural history before 1900—particularly Hawthorne, Whitman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. He has also taught and written about topics related to American environmental literature, as well as the interplay between religious faith and literary imagination. He has published three books, in addition to more than 50 academic articles in book collections and journals.
Elizabeth Grammer
Assistant Professor of English
Elizabeth Elkin Grammer received her A.B. from Davidson College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Her teaching and research concern the literature of the United States, with a special emphasis on African American writers and on the intersections of literature and religion.
John M. Grammer
Professor of English and Director of the School of Letters
Born and raised in Texas, Professor Grammer received his B.A. at Vanderbilt University and his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. He has taught classes in British and American Literature, American Studies, and Sewanee’s interdisciplinary Humanities Program. His academic research principally concerns the literature and intellectual history of the U.S. South, from the age of Thomas Jefferson to the present.
Matthew W. Irvin
Assistant Professor of English
Matthew Irvin received his Ph.D. from Duke University, and his B.A. from the University of Chicago. He specializes in medieval English and Latin literature, and his dissertation deals with the work of the 14th century English poet John Gower.
Pamela R. Macfie
Samuel R. Williamson Distinguished University Professor
(sabbatical leave 2011-2012) Professor Macfie received her Ph.D. from Duke University, where as a Medieval and Renaissance Studies Fellow she developed her special interest in how Renaissance poets transform the works of their classical predecessors. She has published essays on topics that include Dante's use of Ovid, Marlowe's poetry of allusion, Shakespeare's rewriting of Marlowe, Spenser's use of the Arachne myth, and Wyatt's poetry of erotic vengeance.
Kelly Malone
Associate Professor of English and Chair of English
Kelly Malone holds the BA from Providence College and her MA and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to teaching upper-level classes on Shakespeare and eighteenth-century British literature, she regularly teaches as part of the Early Modern team in Sewanee’s interdisciplinary Humanities program. Her research and writing focus on the literary and cultural history of Restoration and Augustan England.
Jennifer D. Michael
Associate Professor of English
Jennifer Davis Michael holds degrees from Sewanee, Oxford, and Northwestern. Her teaching includes upper-level courses in late eighteenth-century and Romantic literature, a seminar on William Blake, and a Studies in Poetry course focusing on "Apprehensions of the Sacred".
Wyatt Prunty
Carlton Professor of English and Director of the Sewanee Writers' Conference
Wyatt Prunty has published eight collections of poetry, most recently, Unarmed and Dangerous: New and Selected Poems and The Lover's Guide to Trapping (both from Johns Hopkins University Press). In conjunction with the Overlook Press, he founded and edited the Sewanee Writers’ Series.
John V. Reishman
Jesse Spaulding Professor of English Literature and Director of Summer School
Professor John Vincent Reishman II holds a B.A. degree from The University of Notre Dame (1963) and an M.A. (1965) and Ph.D (1971) degrees from The University of Virginia where he began his teaching career. In 1969 he became an instructor in English at The University of the South, where he is currently the Jesse Spaulding Professor of English and Director of the Summer School.
Dale E. Richardson
Nick B. Williams Professor of English
Mr. Richardson teaches courses on Shakespeare, late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century English writing, and literary theory and criticism.
David Roby
Tennessee Williams Playwright-in-Residence and Visiting Assistant Professor of English
David Roby is a professional playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member of The Dramatists’ Guild and Actors’ Equity Association. His play Arts and Science won the 2006 Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award and recently received a 2008 publication in Blackbird Journal. He has served as a Graduate Professor in Acting, Oral Interpretation, and Experiencing Theatre at Illinois State University and as Artist-in-Residence at Oklahoma City University. As a member of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival Touring Company, Roby led workshops in Acting, Voice, and Movement in area high schools, community colleges, juvenile detention centers, and women's prisons. Roby has also led numerous creative writing workshops and has worked as a substitute teacher.
Nathan Stogdill
Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Nathan Stogdill is a Sewanee graduate who received his M.A. from Georgetown University and his Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a scholar of early modern and Restoration England, but his teaching spans historical and cultural contexts from Homer to Nabokov.
Lauryl Tucker
Assistant Professor of English
Lauryl Tucker is an alumna of Sewanee; before returning to the Mountain, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and taught for three years at Ithaca College. She teaches courses in 20th- and 21st-century British literature, and has particular interests in the comic aspects of modern texts, and in the various ways that writers and narrators make themselves conspicuous to modern readers.
Caki Wilkinson
Visiting Instructor of English
Caki Wilkinson is a Visiting Instructor in the English Department. She teaches the intermediate and advanced poetry workshops.
Kevin M. Wilson
Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator of the Certificate in Creative Writing
Kevin Wilson is an Assistant Professor in the English Department and coordinates the Certificate in Creative Writing program.
