| Name: | Dr. Stephen M Mercier |
| Title: | Full-Time Teaching Associate |
| Office Location: | Fontaine 215 |
| Extension: | (845) 575-3000 ext. 2614 |
| Email: | Stephen.Mercier@marist.edu |
| Degrees Held: | Ph.D. University of Rhode Island M.A. University of Rhode Island B.A. Clark University |
| Bio: | Stephen M. Mercier grew up in Cumberland, Rhode Island. He attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he majored in Psychology. After college he lived in Studio City, California, where he worked for four years as a Production Assistant on television situation comedies. Returning to his home state, he attended the University of Rhode Island (URI) in Kingston, where he completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in English in May of 2004. For three years Steve worked in the Writing Center and was the Assistant Editor of the academic quarterly, ATQ: 19th-Century American Literature and Culture. He recently edited a double special issue on local Hudson River Valley nature writer John Burroughs for ATQ. His dissertation is titled: "Revaluing the Literary Naturalist: John Burroughs's Emotive Environmental Aesthetics." He has a forthcoming book chapter on Burroughs in a collection titled: Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy (Cambridge Scholars Press). Steve is a regular contributor to Wake-Robin: Newsletter of the John Burroughs Association at the American Museum of Natural History. Recently, he was interviewed for pieces about Burroughs that appeared in The New York Times and on National Public Radio (NPR). He has taught courses in English and Composition at URI, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Wheaton College, and SUNY New Paltz. |
| Interests: | Professor Mercier enjoys playing the guitar, running, hiking in the Mohonk Mountains, and kayaking along the Wallkill River. |
| Publications: | "John Burroughs and the Nineteenth Century." ATQ: 19th C. American Literature and Culture New Series 21.3 (September 2007): 151-64. "John Burroughs Transpersonal Identity with Place." Book Chapter in Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy. Cambridge Scholars Press. Forthcoming 2008. Book Review of Priscilla Coit Murphy's What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring. Amherst, MA: U of Massachusetts P, 2005. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE) 14.2 (Summer 2007): 280-81. "Ornithological Testimonies: Letters to John O'Birds." ATQ: 19th Century American Literature and Culture New Series 21.4 (December 2007). "When Congress Debated Migration: John Burroughs, Henry Ford, Ernest Thompson Seton, and the Congressional Debate over the Weeks-McLean Law." Wake-Robin: Newsletter of the John Burroughs Association at the Museum of Natural History (AMNH) 39.2 (Winter 2007): 6-10. "Protecting Migratory Birds: John Burroughs, Rachel Carson, and Aldo Leopold." Wake-Robin (Winter 2008). Forthcoming. "Into the Pond-Lily's Heart: The Influence of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass on John Burroughs." Wake-Robin 38.3 (Spring 2006): 4-8. "Letters to John O'Birds." Wake-Robin 38.1 (Spring 2005): 3-7. |
| Research Interests: | He is interested in composition studies, nineteenth-century American literature, nature writing, environmental aesthetics, place studies, and ecocriticism. |
| Conferences & Workshops: | July 9-15, 2006 Concord, MA Selected to participate in National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop, titled "Concord, Massachusetts, and American Utopian Thought in the Early 19th Century." March 22-25, 2006 Chicago, IL "Composition in the Center Spaces: Building Community, Culture, Coalitions." Fifty-Seventh Annual Convention of the College Composition and Communication Conference (CCCC) November 9, 2007 Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking. Attended workshop "Biography as Literary and Historical Text: Mark Lytle's The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement." |
| Affiliations: | Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) John Burroughs Association (JBA) New York College English Association (NYCEA) Modern Language Association (MLA) National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) |
| Presentations: | June 21, 2001 Flagstaff, Arizona "Persuasive Strategies in United States Nature Writing: Toward a Taxonomy for the Twenty-First Century" delivered at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment's (ASLE) Fourth Biennial Conference at Northern Arizona State University. June 6, 2003 Boston, Massachusetts "John Burroughs's Ecological Sublime View of Evolution" delivered at ASLE's Fifth Biennial Conference at Boston University. February 21, 2004 Saratoga Springs, NY "The Emotive in Environmental Aesthetics" delivered at the Fourteenth North American Interdisciplinary Conference: Environment and Commmunity. May 15, 2004 West Park, NY Guest Speaker for Slabsides Day at the John Burroughs Sanctuary. Talk was titled "Intimate Ornithological Testimonies: Letters to John O'Birds." June 9, 2004 Oneonta, NY "Intimate Ornithological Testimonies: Letters to John O'Birds" also presented at "Sharp Eyes III: John Burroughs and His Contemporaries, Near and Far: A Summer Conference on John Burroughs and Nature Writing" at SUNY Oneonta May 21, 2004 West Park, NY Guest speaker for Slabsides Day at the John Burroughs Sanctuary. Talk was titled "Into the Pond-Lily's Heart: The Influence of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass on John Burroughs." June 5, 2006 Oneonta, NY "John Burroughs's Transpersonal Identity with Place" delivered at "Sharp Eyes IV: Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy." SUNY Oneonta April 14, 2007 (Morning) New Paltz, NY "John Burroughs's Rhetoric of Evolution: Poetry, Science, and Spirituality" delivered at the New York College English Association (NYCEA) conference on "Literature on Evolution/Literature on Revolution" at SUNY New Paltz. April 14, 2007 (Afternoon) West Park, NY "The Life and Writings of John Burroughs" delivered at Slabsides. Invited to speak to honor students from Mount Saint Mary College. June 2007 Spartanburg, South Carolina "John Burroughs and the Sentimental" delivered at ASLE's Seventh Annual Biennial Conference at Wofford College. October 27, 2007 West Park, NY "John Burroughs, Environmentalism, and The Hudson Valley" delivered at Pond House. Invited to speak to honors from Mount Saint Mary College. |
