Will Glover

My research interests lie in early North American non-fiction. Specifically, I am interested in the tension between the truth-claims of ostensibly utilitarian texts (travelogues, natural histories, settlement guides, and legal and historical writing) and the literary techniques inevitably employed to make them. How was colonial space represented by its inhabitants, both Indigenous and emigrant? How did they feel they ought to represent it? How were these representations received, and what impact did they make on their readers?

 

I also have secondary interests in contemporary travel writing, and in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, particularly in relation to Romanticism.

Education
M.A. in English, Boston University (2022)
M.A. in Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of York (2017)
B.A. in English Language and Literature, Exeter College, University of Oxford (2016)

Presentations
Crèvecœur’s bees,” Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention in Boston (March 8th, 2024)“Generative heritage: Indigenous history-work in William Bartram’s Travels,” American Literature Association Annual Conference in Boston (May 27th, 2023)
“A country for old men: wondrous gerontocracy in Sir Walter Ralegh’s The Discovery of Guiana,” Travel & Wonder, 1450-1750 at the University of York (online, April 27th 2023)
“Maroons and morasses: complicating the swamp in antebellum literature,” Boston University Americanist Forum (March 27th, 2023)
“Native American petitions in New England, 1675–1763,” Modern Languages Association Annual Convention in San Francisco (January 8th, 2023)
“The state of the archive & Native American petitions,” The Mobile Archive Project Symposium, University of Siegen, Germany (online, November 2021)

Peer-reviewed Publications
“Ethical dilemmas of the digital Robinsonade: What should we do with ‘colonialist’ video games?” Ampersand: An American Studies Journal, Vol. 2:2 (Summer 2023)
“‘On Poetry and geometric Truth’: Wordsworth’s Genius Loci,” The Wordsworth Circle 54:1, 63-85 (Winter 2023)
“‘Where many paths and errands meet’: Travel Writing in The Lord of the Rings” – Journal of Tolkien Research, 9:2 (2020).

Other Publications and Reviews:
Conference review of ALA 2023 in Early American Literature, Vol. 59:2 (2024), 522-527“Tolkien’s Legacy,” BU Today (August 30, 2023)
“Thresholds,” Rucksack Magazine Vol. 8, Coasts (September 2021).
“Spaces,” Rucksack Magazine Vol. 6, Endless (April 2020).
“Pedestrian Thinking,” Rucksack Magazine Vol. 5, The City Issue (November 2019).
“Lies and Longing,” Rucksack Magazine Vol. 4, The Pursuit Issue (April 2019).
“The Perils of Pilgrimage,” Rucksack Magazine Vol. 3, The Island Issue (September 2018).
“The Window’s Eye,” Rucksack Magazine online (May 2018).
“Tolkien’s Beowulf,” Exon (2014), 65.

Teaching:
“Reading and Writing the American Environment” (EN 120, EN 195)
“Crossing Borders: Exploring and Expanding the Genre of Travel Writing” (WR 120, WR 151)