Cain, William E. 1952-

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CAIN, William E. 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952. Education: Tufts University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1974; Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1976, Ph.D., 1978.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, Wellesley College, 106 Central St., Wellesley, MA 02481. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, Mary Jewett Gaiser Professor of English.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Anna and Samuel Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching, 2001.

WRITINGS:

The Crisis in Criticism: Theory, Literature, and Reform in English Studies, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1984.

F.O. Mathiessen and the Politics of Criticism, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1988.

(Author of annotations and introduction) Maxwell Philip, Emmanuel Appadocca; or, Blighted Life: A Tale of the Boucaneers, edited and with afterword by Selwyn R. Cudjoe, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1997.

(With Sylvan Barnet) A Short Guide to Writing about Literature, 8th edition, Longman (New York, NY), 2000, 10th edition, 2005.

(With Sylvan Barnet and William Burto) An Introduction to Literature: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, 13th edition, Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2003, 14th edition published as An Introduction to Literature: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, 2006.

EDITOR

Philosophical Approaches to Literature: New Essays on Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Texts, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA)/Associated University Presses (Cranbury, NJ), 1984.

Teaching the Conflicts: Gerald Graff, Curricular Reform, and the Culture Wars, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Dianne F. Sadoff) Teaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates, Modern Language Association of America (New York, NY), 1994.

Making Feminist History: The Literary Scholarship of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Selwyn R. Cudjoe) C.L.R. James: His Intellectual Legacies, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1995.

(And author of introduction) William Lloyd Garrison and the Fight against Slavery: Selections from "The Liberator," Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press (Boston, MA), 1995.

Reconceptualizing American Literary/Cultural Studies: Rhetoric, History, and Politics in the Humanities, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1996.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance: A Cultural and Critical Edition, Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press (Boston, MA), 1996.

A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Vincent Leitch, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John McGowan, and Jeffrey J. Williams) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Norton (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Marcia Stubbs and Sylvan Barnet) The Little, Brown Reader, 9th edition, Longman (New York, NY), 2003, 10th edition, Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2006.

American Literature, two volumes, Penguin Academics/Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Sylvan Barnet and William Burto) Literature for Composition: Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, 7th edition, Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2005.

(And compiler, with Sylvan Barnet and William Burto) A Little Literature: Reading/Writing and Argument, Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2006.

Also general editor for two book series for Garland Publishing, and of one book series for Bedford Books. Member of editorial board, American Literary History; member of advisory board, College English.

SIDELIGHTS:

English professor William E. Cain has focused much of his research and writings on nineteenth-and twentieth-century American literature. He has also written on literary criticism, African American history, and the theory of criticism. Reviewers have praised the collections Cain has edited or coedited, such as An Introduction to Literature: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, about which a Contemporary Review contributor pointed out that the editors try to convey that "literature is a product that requires both skill and hard work." Reviewing The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism for the Kenyon Review, Geoffrey Galt Harpham declared: "It is so definitive and capacious that it renders all its predecessors instantly redundant."