James G. Watson

James Watson

Frances W. O’Hornett Professor of LiteratureZink Hall 313
(918)631-2685
james-watson@utulsa.edu

Research and writing have focused on 20th-century American literature, specifically on William Faulkner on whose work I have published three books, an edition of previously unpublished letters, and some two dozen essays and chapters in books. Conference papers and lectures nationally and internationally; I have presented papers on Faulkner and other American writers at guest-editor, the Mississippi Quarterly (Summer 2007); archival research in the Faulkner collection at the Alderman Library, and the Faulkner and Peter Matthiessen collections at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Department of English Chair, 1991-2000; president of the South Central MLA, 1990-91; named first holder of the Frances W. O'Hornett Chair of Literature, 2001. My present project is a book on Matthiessen's fiction and nonfiction.

Education and Degrees Earned

  • AB English, Bowdoin College, 1961
  • MA English, The University of Pittsburgh, 1963
  • PhD English, The University of Pittsburgh, 1968

Areas of Academic Specialty

  • 20th-Century American Literature
    • William Faulkner

Previous Teaching Experience

  • Lecturer in English, The University of Pittsburgh, 1968-1969
  • Visiting Professor of American Literature, University of Keele, UK, 1983

Previous Relevant Work Experience

  • Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Pittsburgh, 1968-1969

Professional Affiliations

  • South Central Modern Language Association
  • William Faulkner Society
  • Eudora Welty Society
  • American Literature Section, MLA

Courses Taught at TU

  • Graduate and Undergraduate courses in 20th- and 19th-century American literature with special focus on major figures such as Faulkner, Hemingway, Welty, and Peter Matthiessen
  • Writing the American South; The American Novel; Four Poets of America (Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, Stevens);
  • Honors Shakespeare; general education courses

Awards & Recognition

  • 1982 Outstanding University Professor, TU.
  • 1991 Certificate of Honor, TU Multi-Cultural Affairs Committee.
  • 2002 Arts and Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award, TU.
  • 2007 Mentor of the Year, TU TURC.

Publications

  • “Memory Believes Before Knowing Remembers’: William Faulkner, John Faulkner, and My Brother Bill”
    Mississippi Quarterly, LIV.4 (Fall 2001), 579-594
  • Thinking of Home: William Faulkner’s Letters to His Mother and Father, 1918-1926
    NY: W.W. Norton, 1992
  • William Faulkner, Letters and Fictions
    Austin: U Texas P, 1987
  • Man Writing: The Watson Trilogy: Peter Matthiessen in Archive
    TSLL, 46.2 (Summer 2004), 245-270.
  • Peter Matthiessen’s Sal Si Puedes: In America with Cesar Chavez
    Genre, XXXIII.1-2 (Spring-Summer 2005), 95-114.
  • The Sloped Whimsical Ironic Hand Out of Mississippi Attenuated: Absalom, Absalom! in Manuscript
    Make It New: The Rise of Modernism. Ed. Kurt Heinzelman (Austin: U Texas P, 2003), pp. 140-143.
  • William Faulkner and the Theater of War
    Faulkner and War. Proceedings of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, 2001. Ed Noel Polk and Ann J. Abadie (Jackson: UP Mississippi 2004), pp. 20-35.
  • William Faulkner, Self-Presentation and Performance
    Austin: U Texas P, 2002.
  • William Faulkner Special Issue
    Guest Editor, William Faulkner Special Issue, Mississippi Quarterly, Summer 2005. Forthcoming.