Title

John Miles

Curator of Books & Head of Instruction
225-578-6547
johnmiles@lsu.edu
202C Hill Memorial Library

Responsibilities

John Miles is responsible for the curation of the printed material in Special Collections, including the McIlhenny Natural History Collection, the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collection, and the Rare Book Collection. He also oversees and coordinates instruction for Hill Memorial Library. 

Experience

  • Associate Librarian, Curator of Books and Head of Instruction Services, Special Collections, Louisiana State University Libraries. (2018-present)
  • Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Memphis. (2015-2018, on leave academic year 2015-16)
  • Professional-in-Residence, Hill Memorial Library and the Department of English, Louisiana State University. (2015-2016)
  • Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Memphis. (2009-2015)
  • Visiting Instructor, Department of English, College of St. Rose. (2008-2009)

Education

  • PhD, English, Duke University. (2009)
  • MA, English, University of Arizona. (2002)
  • BA, English and Biology, Trinity University. (1998)

Presentations

Selected Conference Presentations:

  • “‘Singular regard unto the simple truth’: Bradford, Plymouth, and the Success of the Declension Narrative.” Religion and Politics in Early America, St. Louis, MO, March 1-4, 2018.
  •  “‘The Title of an History’: Increase Mather’s Transatlantic Historical Project.” Society of Early Americanists Special Topics Conference. London, England, July 17-19, 2014.
  • “‘A true, if a slight, impression’: Rewriting the Revolution in Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s The Linwoods.” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era Conference. Oxford, MS, February 20-22, 2014.
  • “‘Where a past did not haunt’: Native American Erasure in Morrison’s A Mercy.” Society of Early Americanists Biennial Conference. Savannah, GA, February 28-March 2, 2013.
  • “Mary Rowlandson and the Historians: Writing the West into Massachusetts Bay.” Western Literature Association Annual Conference: High Plains Drifting. Spearfish, SD, September 30-October 3, 2009.

Publications

Representative Scholarly Essays:

  • “Thomas Morton and the Critique of Puritan Intolerance.” Colonial Era to the 19th Century in American Literature. Ed. Laura A. Leibman. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2016. Web.
  • “Science Fiction and Fantasy.” In A History of Virginia Literature. Ed. Kevin Hayes. New York: Cambridge UP, 2015. Print.
  • “Captured by Genre: Mary Rowlandson’s Western Imagination on the Nineteenth-Century Frontier.” In Before the West Was West: Pre-1800 Western American Literature. Eds Amy Hamilton and Tom Hillard. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 2014. 109-153. Print.
  • “‘It’s all f***ing amalgamation and capital, ain’t it?’: Deadwood, the Pinkertons, and Westward Expansion.” In The Last Western: Deadwood and the End of American Empire. Eds. Paul Stasi and Jennifer Greiman. New York: Continuum, 2012. 62-82. Print. Co-author Jeffrey Scraba.

Scholarly Editing:

  • Academic advisor and editor. “Mary Rowlandson.” Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Richard Layman. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2017. Web.

Selected Book Reviews:

  • Review of T.J. Tomlin, A Divinity for All Persuasions: Almanacs and Early American Religious Life. Early American Literature, 50:3 (November 2016). Print.
  • Review of Phillip H. Round, Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663-1880. Journal of Ethnic American History, 32:3 (Spring 2013). 110-1. Print.

Research Interests

Early American literature; the history of the book; American studies; the American frontier; utopian/dystopian literature; print culture; the print culture of the scientific revolution.