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Michael G. Ditmore Faculty Profile

Michael G. Ditmore

Professor of English
Humanities/Teacher Education Division, Seaver College
CAC 314
310.506.4182

Biography

Michael Ditmore is professor of English at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. His BA is from Austin College, and his MA and PhD are from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on early American literature, beginning with confessional expression and the settlement of New England from the 1620s. More recently, his interests turned toward the Revolutionary period, especially the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution but also including J. Hector St. John de Crévecoeur and Charles Brockden Brown.

Education

  • PhD, English, University of Texas at Austin, 1994
  • MA English, University of Texas at Austin, 1989
  • BA, English, Austin College, Sherman, TX, 1979, With Honors

 

  • "What Do We Know About the New England Puritans, and When Did We Know It? Twenty-First Century Reconsiderations of William Bradford and John Winthrop," American Literature and the New Puritan Studies, ed. Bryce Traister (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017).
  • "Hutchinson, Anne," Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, Vol. 12, Eds. Christine Helmer et al., DeGruyter (2016).
  • "Benjamin Franklin's 'The Art of Virtue' as DIY." Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 7:1/2 (Spring/Summer 2014).
  • "Hutchinson, Anne," Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters. Ed. Marion Ann Taylor. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012. 277-79.
  • Articles on John Cotton, Thomas Shepard, Thomas Hooker, William Apess, and Devotional Literature in The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, ed. George T. Kurian and James D. Smith, Scarecrow Press, 2010.
  • 'O Supreme Being': Religious Indifference, Theodicy, and Prayer in Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, in Making Peace in Our Time: Proceedings of the Northeast Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature, October 26-28, 2007, Regis College, Weston, Massachusetts. Ed. Joan F. Hallisey and Mary-Anne Vetterling. Weston, MA: Peace Press at Regis College, 2008, pp. 77-84.
  • Edwards - Thoreau - Dillard: Reading/Writing Nature and the Awakened/Awakening Self, in The Contribution of Jonathan Edwards to American Culture and Society: Essays on America's Spiritual Founding Father (The Northampton Tercentenary Celebration 1703-2003). Ed. Richard A.S. Hall. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008, 153-198., 1998
  • Bliss Lost, Wisdom Gained: Contemplating Emblems and Enigmas in Anne Bradstreet's 'Contemplations,' Early American Literature 42.1 (2007): 31-72.
  • Articles on William Bradford, Samuel Gorton, Thomas Morton, Roger Williams, John Cotton, Thomas Dudley, John Wilson, and the Bay Psalm Book. for The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, ed. Jeffrey Gray, 5 vols., (Greenwood Press, 2006).
  • Articles on Anne Bradstreet, Anne Hutchinson, Edward Taylor, Increase Mather, Thomas Cobbet, William Hubbard, Edward Winslow, John Eliot, Robert Child, William Bradford, William Pynchon, Samuel Gorton, William Coddington, Family of Love, Laws and Liberties, Moses His Judicials and Mosaic Law for Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America, ed. Francis J. Bremer and Tom Webster (ABC-CLIO, 2005).
  • Prophetess in Her Own Country: An Exegesis of Anne Hutchinson's 'Immediate Revelation,' (William and Mary Quarterly 57.2 [April 2000]: 349-392).
  • Autobiographical Acoustics: Hearing/Speaking Divine Voices in Elizabeth Ashbridge's Account (Pacific Coast Philology 31 [1996]: 13-39)., 1996
  • Preparation and Confession: Reconsidering Edmund S. Morgan's Visible Saints (New England Quarterly 67.2 [June 1994]: 298-319)., 1994
  • Society of Early Americanists
  • American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association
  • "Planned Expiration, Amendment, Judicial Review, and … Redaction?: Textual Considerations of the United States Constitution’s Printedness (and Not)," 2020 Global Conference on Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change, University of Texas-Austin, January 17, 2020
  • "Governor Winthrop's 'Little Speech': Another Hearing," OIEAHC-SEA Conference, Chicago, 20 June 2015.
  • "Cataloging Independence: The Rhetoric of Non-Consumption and –Importation Agreements on the Way to the Declaration," Society of Early Americanists 8th Biennial Conference, Savannah GA, 28 Feb. 2013.
  • "Concluding Independence: Jefferson's Double-Columned Declaration," American Literature Association 23rd Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, 25 May 2012.
  • "Another Original of Political Authority: The (Hidden) Dialectic of Revelation in Legitimating John Locke's Second Treatise," 18th Annual Conference of Association for Core Texts and Courses, Milwaukee, WI, 31 March 2012.
  • "Imitation of Excellence: Franklin's Art of Virtue and the Pursuit of Moral Perfection," 17th Annual Conference of Association for Core Texts and Courses, New Haven, CT, 17 April 2011
  • " 'My Monarchies Their Legs Do Lack': Conjectures on the Incompleteness of Anne Bradstreet's Four Monarchies," Society of Early Americanists 7th Biennial Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 4 Mar. 2011.
  • "The Grammar of Gothic Victimhood: Clara's Passive Vocality in Wieland," Weird America: Circum-Atlantic Cultures, 1790-1830: Seventh Bieneial Conference of the Charles Brockden Society, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, 21 Oct. 2010.
  • Thinking Rules and Applications: The Value of Theoretical Criticism in Plato's Republic, ACTC 16th Annual Conference, New Brunswick, NJ, 17 April 2010.
  • Agencies of Independence: Revolutionary Voice(s) and Liberating Passivity in 1776. Humanities/Teacher Education Division Symposium, 5 November 2008.
  • What God Speaks Through the Events of Our Lives: Memory and Imagination in the Memoirs of Frederick Buechner, The World and Christian Imagination (2006 Pruit Memorial Symposium and Lilly Fellows Program National Research Conference), 10 Nov. 2006
  • "A Loud Voice to My Inner Ear": Entanglements and Transformations of Language and Time in Augustine's Confessions"; Inscription conference, Abilene Christian University, 29 Sept. 2006.
  • God Has Made Our Rulers Mad: Martin Luther on Sacred and Secular Politics, Great Books presentation, Raitt Recital Hall, Pepperdine University, 6 April 2006.
  • Original Sin, Free Will, True Virtue, and the End for Which God Created the World: Jonathan Edwards as Missionary, Western Region Conference on Christianity and Literature, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, 10 Mar. 2006.
  • Bone of My Bone, Flesh and My Flesh: John Winthrop's Bridal Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century, American Studies Association annual conference, Washington, D.C., 3 Nov. 2005.
  • The Bay/New England Psalm Book and the Poetry of Anne Bradstreet: A Consideration of Conflicting Aesthetics and Fluctuating Reputations, Society of Early Americanists, 2nd Biennial Conference, Norfolk, Virginia, 8 March 2001.
  • The Treatment of Dissent in Early New England, John Winthrop's Worlds: England and New England 1588-1649, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, 17-18 Sept. 1999.
  • The Image of Anne Hutchinson in the Modern American Mind, Seaver Faculty Conference, 23 Oct. 1998

Topics

  • American literature, culture, and history (before 1900), autobiography and narrative theory, Christianity and literature

Courses

  • Great Books
  • American Literature

Links