William Pannapacker

William Pannapacker
Born 1968
Camden, New Jersey
Nationality American
Alma mater Ph.D., History of American Civilization, Harvard University, 1999; A.M in English and American Literature at Harvard University, 1995; M.A. in English at University of Miami, 1993; a B.A. in English at Saint Joseph’s University (1990)
Occupation Professor of English literature, academic administrator, higher education journalist
Employer Hope College
Organization Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Awards Bowdoin Prize, Whiting Foundation Fellow (1998–99)

William Pannapacker (born 1968, Camden, New Jersey) is an American professor of English literature, an academic administrator, and a higher education journalist.[1] He is the author of Revised Lives: Walt Whitman and Nineteenth-Century Authorship, and numerous articles on American literature and culture, higher education, and the Digital Humanities. He has been a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education since 1998, and he is a contributor to The New York Times and Slate Magazine. He is the Director of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities at Hope College in Holland, Michigan and the Faculty Director of the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative of the Great Lakes Colleges Association. According to Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, "in the world of education journalism, there are few opinion voices as potent as that of William Pannapacker."[2]

Biography

He earned a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization at Harvard University in 1999, following an A.M in English and American Literature at Harvard University in 1995, an M.A. in English at University of Miami in 1993, and a B.A. in English at Saint Joseph’s University (1990). His doctoral dissertation was on the poet Walt Whitman, and his scholarly emphasis is 19th-century American literature and culture. Pannapacker is one of six scholars since 1790 (including Ralph Waldo Emerson) to have won the Bowdoin Prize twice (1994, 1999); he is also a three-time winner of the Helen Choate Bell Prize for American Literature. He was a lecturer in Harvard's History and Literature honors concentration (1995-2000) and a Whiting Foundation Fellow (1998–99). Pannapacker is the author of Revised Lives: Walt Whitman and Nineteenth-Century Authorship (Routledge, 2004), and he delivered the David H. Hirsch Memorial Lecture at Brown University in 2005.[3] Since 2000, Pannapacker has been employed by Hope College, a liberal arts institution in Holland, Michigan. In 2009 he became the founding director of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholars Program in the Arts and Humanities, an undergraduate honors concentration that integrates the arts and humanities with collaborative research in digital technologies and experiential education.[4] Since 2013 Pannapacker has been the faculty director of the Digital Liberal Arts Initiative of the Great Lakes Colleges Association.[5]

Pannapacker has been a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education since 1998. Many of his contributions concern Digital Humanities, a scholarly field that integrates computing with traditional academic research. Geoffrey Rockwell, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities Computing at the University of Alberta, credits those writings, particularly Pannapacker's coverage of the annual conventions of the Modern Language Association, with helping to move the Digital Humanities "from a marginal field trying to gain respect to a favorite of many university administrators."[6]

References

  1. "English Department Faculty, William Pannapacker". Hope College. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  2. Walsh, Bari (2011). "A Conversation with William Pannapacker," Colloquy, Spring 2011, accessed 5 September 2012
  3. "Events Prior to 2007". English Department. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  4. William Pannapacker, from Hope College English Department.
  5. http://www.hope.edu/2013/10/01/william-pannapacker-direct-glca-digital-liberal-arts-initiative, accessed 22 September 2014.
  6. Rockwell, Geoffrey (2012). "The Swallow Flies Swiftly Through: An Analysis of Humanist" "Digital Humanities", accessed 2 September 2012.