Faculty Detail

David Thomas Sumner

Professor of English and Environmental Studies, English Department Chair

Education:

• B.A. University of Utah
• M.A. Brigham Young University
• Ph.D. University of Oregon

Academic Interests:
Environmental Rhetoric,
The Nature Tradition in American Literature,
Ecocriticism.

Publications:

• "Testimony, Refuge, and the Sense of Place - A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams." Reprinted in A Voice in the Wilderness: Dialogues with Terry Tempest Williams. Ed. Michael Austin. Utah State U P 2006.
• "'That Could Happen': Nature Writing, The Nature Fakers, and a Rhetoric of Assent." ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Vol. 12.2, Summer 2005.
• "Location and Landscape in Literary Americanisms: A Brief Look at H. L. Davis and F. Scott Fitzgerald." International Conference at the Bayreuth Institute of American Studies, Bayreuth Universitãt, Bayreuth Germany. January, 2008.
• "'That Could Happen': Nature Writing, The Nature Fakers, and a Rhetoric of Assent.” University of Helsinki, January 2008.
• "Wilderness, the Garden, and God: The Shifting Frames for American Nature." The German-American Center, Stuttgart Germany. July 2007.

Recent Awards:

Fulbright. University of Bayreuth, Germany: 3/07-8/07

Op-Eds

• Our Best Hope: A Listening Campaign
• States should get out of the marriage business
• Save some wild places from machines