Philip F. Gura, Joint Professor of English and American Studies

William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture

Contact Information

Homepage: http://www.unc.edu/~gura/
Email: gura@email.unc.edu
Phone: (919) 962-4033

Education

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1977
A.B., Harvard College, 1972
Phillips Academy, Andover, 1968

Honors and Awards

• Distinguished Scholar Award, Division of American Literature to 1800 of the Modern Language Association, 2008
• National Book Critics Circle Finalist, Nonfiction, 2008
• Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American Antiquarian Society (2006-07).
• Who's Who In America, 2006--.
• James Russell Wiggins Lecturer, American Antiquarian Society, 2004.
• University Post-Baccalaureate Distinguished Teaching Award, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004.
• Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 2002-03.
• Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, American Antiquarian Society, 2002-03 (declined).
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Special Citation, for America's Instrument, 2000.
• Award of Merit, Society of Early Americanists, 2000.
• Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 1998.
• Frances Densmore Prize, 1996, awarded by American Musical Instrument Society
• Member, Massachusetts Historical Society (elected), 1996
• Who's Who in American Education, 1993.
• National Council, Institute of Early American History and Culture (elected), 1991-1994.
• Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 1989.
• Member, American Antiquarian Society, elected 1988.
• Senior Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, VA, 1985-86.
• Faculty Fellowship, Council on Research and Creative Work, University of Colorado, 1985-86.
• Chancellor's Writing Award, University of Colorado, 1985.
• Member, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, elected 1985.
• Fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, 1980-81.
• Norman Foerster Prize in American Literature, awarded by the Modern Language Association, 1977.
• Summer Research Fellowship, Council on Research and Creative Work, University of Colorado, 1977.

Research Interests

My research interests range widely from the colonial era through the Civil War, in American literature and American Studies. Although I have written on a wide range of topics, including the history of American music, most recently I have returned to long-standing interests in American literature and religion. In 2007, Hill & Wang published my "American Transcendentalists: A History", which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction. Now I am completing Still Making History, the bicentennial history of the American Antiquarian Society, one of the nation’s oldest learned societies. I regularly teach courses in American literature and American Studies.

Professor Gura is the Advisory editor for Early American Literature and Adjunct Professor in Religious Studies.

Publications

American Trancendentalism: A History
Philip Gura
Hill Wang, forthcoming, 2007

Jonathan Edwards: America’s Evangelical
Philip Gura
Hill & Wang, 2005

C. F. Martin and His Guitars
Philip Gura
UNC Press, 2003

America's Instrument:
The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century
Philip F. Gura and James F. Bollman University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

The Crossroads of American History and Literature
Philip F. Gura
Penn State University Press, 1996.

A Glimpse of Sion's Glory
Puritan Radicalism in New England, 1620-1660
Philip F. Gura
Wesleyan University Press, 1984.

The Wisdom of Words:
Language, Theology, and Literature in the New England Renaissance
Philip F. Gura
Wesleyan University Press, 1981.

Buried from the World:
Inside the Massachusetts State Prison, 1829-31
with an Edition of the Memorandum Books of the Reverend Jared Curtis
(forthcoming, Massachusetts Historical Society).

Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988.

Critical Essays on American Transcendentalism
Philip F. Gura with Joel Myerson
Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982.