Skip to main content

Richard Brodhead

William Preston Few Distinguished Professor Emeritus
English
Box 90001, Durham, NC 27708-0001
207 Allen Bldg, Durham, NC 27710

Overview


Like many students of my generation, I had little formal training in American literature, so it was a minor act of personal rebellion in 1970 when I decided, in the middle of my graduate studies, to become an Americanist. It seemed a wonderfully young field, unencumbered by tradition, with little past at its back. My first attraction (or obsession) involved specific authors, notably Hawthorne and Whitman.

Beginning my career as a professor in 1972, I found increasingly that the form of study I …

Current Appointments & Affiliations


William Preston Few Distinguished Professor Emeritus · 2022 - Present English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor Emeritus of English · 2022 - Present English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

In the News


Published April 26, 2019
Walt Whitman Was a Rebel, And It Still Matters Two Centuries Later
Published April 22, 2019
Richard Brodhead Returns to Duke With a [Walt] Whitman Sampler
Published November 3, 2018
Duke Unveils Official Brodhead Portrait

View All News

Recent Publications


Prophets in America circa 1830: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nat Turner, Joseph Smith

Chapter · January 1, 2009 This chapter finds that by contextualizing Smith's history as prophetic autobiography alongside Nat Turner's, uncannily similar aspects emerge. As a result, what the chapter calls a history of prophetism takes shape that delineates some of the forms and tr ... Full text Cite

The Cambridge History of American Literature

Chapter · 2005 Introduction. The American Literary field, 1860–1890 ... Cite

Taking democracy to school

Chapter · December 1, 2004 Cite
View All Publications

Education, Training & Certifications


Yale University · 1972 Ph.D.
Yale University · 1970 M.Phil.
Yale University · 1968 B.A.