go to main page content
utility link usm home | a-z index | contacts | help
University of Southern Maine [home page]

American & New England Studies

Skip navigation

Curriculum Vitae: Kent C. Ryden

Employment

2005- Director, American and New England Studies Program, University of Southern Maine
2000- Associate Professor, American and New England Studies Program, University of Southern Maine
1994-2000 Assistant Professor, American and New England Studies Program, University of Southern Maine

Education

May, 1991 Ph.D. (American Civilization), Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
May, 1986 M.A. (American Civilization), Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
August, 1984 M.A. (English), University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.
May, 1981 B.A. (summa cum laude), Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Honors and Awards

  • Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize, American Studies Association,1991.

Selected Publications

Books

  • Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing, and the Sense of Place. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993.
  • Landscape with Figures: Nature and Culture in New England. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001.
  • Knowing Who and Where You Are: Region, Place, and Identity in American Literary Landscapes. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, under contract.

Articles and Chapters

  • "Landscape with Figures: Nature, Folk Culture, and the Human Ecology of American Environmental Writing." ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 4:1 (1997): 1-28.
  • "Writing the Midwest: History, Literature, and Regional Identity." Geographical Review 89:4 (October 1999): 511-32.
  • "Big Trees, Back Yards, and the Borders of Nature." Michigan Quarterly Review 40:1 (Winter 2001): 126-40.
  • "Robert Frost, the New England Environment, and the Discourse of Objects." Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism, edited by Karla Armbruster and Kathleen Wallace. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001. 295-310.
  • "Environment and Imagination in New England." Maine History 40:1 (spring 2001): 70-74.
  • "New England Literature and Regional Identity." A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America, edited by Charles L. Crow. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003. 195-212.
  • "Region, Place, and Resistance in Northern New England Writing." Colby Quarterly 39:1 (March 2003): 109-120.
  • "The Regional Context of Main Street: Word and Image." Grant Wood's Main Street: Art, Literature, and the American Midwest, edited by Lea Rosson DeLong. Ames, IA.: University Museums, Iowa State University, 2004. 223-28.
  • "Writing Portland: Literature and the Production of Place." Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England, edited by Joseph A. Conforti. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2005. 173-92.
  • "Tuttle Road: Landscape as Environmental Text." In Search of a Common Language: Environmental Writing and Education, edited by Melody Graulich and Paul Crumbley. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005. 89-101.
  • "Why Your World Looks the Way It Does and Why It Matters: Cultural Landscape as Visual Culture." Visual Arts Research 32:1 (2006),73-75.
  • "Geography," "Landscape" (with Simon J. Bronner), "Maine, Downeast," and "New England" (with Simon J. Bronner). Encyclopedia of American Folklife, edited by Simon J. Bronner. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2006. 485-88, 673-76, 735-37, 867-71.
  • "Beneath the Surface: Natural Landscapes, Cultural Meanings, and Teaching about Place." On Location: Reading and Writing the Bioregion, edited by Laird Christensen and Hal Crimmel. Reno: University of Nevada Press, forthcoming (2007).
  • "'How Could a Weed Be a Book?': Books, Ethics, Power, and A Sand County Almanac." ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Accepted for publication 8/21/06.
  • "The Environment's Place in the Maine Imagination." Maine's Place in the Environmental Imagination, edited by Michael Burke. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming (2007).
  • "The Corpse in the Stone Wall: Annie Proulx's Ironic New England." Annie Proulx and the Geographical Imagination: Rethinking Regionalism, Place, and the Local, edited by Alex Hunt. Essay collection currently being proposed to publishers.

Book Reviews

Book reviews in The American Scholar, New England Quarterly, American Historical Review, Western American Literature, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, and Historical New Hampshire.

Conference Presentations

Thirty-eight presentations at regional and national conferences.