Dr. Tom J. Hillard joined the faculty of the Department of English at Boise State University in 2007, where he teaches courses on early American literature, environmental writing, Western American literature, and the literary Gothic. He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Arizona, an M.A. in Literature and the Environment from the University of Nevada-Reno, and a B.A. in English from Boise State University. His current research focuses on the intersections between fear, nature writing, and the literary Gothic in American literature and culture. Dr. Hillard is a former Co-editor of the Boise State University Western Writers Series. He now serves as Book Review Editor for the Oxford University Press journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.
Articles
Before the West Was West: Rethinking the Temporal Borders of Western American Literature, Western American Literature (2012)
Questions of how to define “Western American Literature” and how to define the “American West”...
“Deep Into That Darkness Peering”: An Essay on Gothic Nature, Isle-Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2009)
When the anxious narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" first hears the gentle "rapping...
Books
Contributions to Books
'Captain John Smith' and 'Thomas Harriot' [forthcoming], Encyclopedia of American Environmental Literature (2011)
Presentations
When the West Was East: Or, the Anxiety of Exhuming the Past, 47th Annual Western Literature Association Conference (2012)
"Before the West Was the West," Roundtable organizer and participant, Western Literature Association Conference (2011)
"A Workshop for Graduate Students and Academic Professionals," Workshop co-leader, Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) Conference (2011)
“From Salem Witch to Blair Witch: The Puritan Influence on American Gothic Nature.”, Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) (2011)