Dr. Michael Hoberman, Assistant Professor of English

Miller Hall ~ 23   Ext. 3746    mhoberman@fsc.edu

Education:

            B.A. Reed College (American Studies)

            M.A. University of Massachusetts, Amherst (English and American Studies)

            Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst (English and American Studies)

Graduate Courses Taught:

Culture and Literature of Place

Areas of Interest:

American folklore; regionalism and vernacular culture; New England literature and culture; American women�s literature; the American West; African American literature; Southern writers; sense of place.

Professional Highlights/Publications:

           "New England Folklore."  Chapter included in the New England volume of the      

           American Regional Cultures series.  Greenwood Press (2004).            

           "The Names of the Flowers: Ruby Hemenway's Redemption of History."  Frontiers: A  

            Journal of Women's Studies, 25.1 (Winter/Spring 2004).

Yankee Moderns: Folk Regional Identity in the Sawmill Valley of Western   Massachusetts, 1890-1920. University of Tennessee Press, 2000.

Articles and book reviews published in The Encyclopedia of New England Culture, 

Clio, Journal of American Folklore, New England Connection, Oral History Review, The Southern Quarterly, and Frontiers (forthcoming).

Coordinator, New England Community Heritage Project, University of New Hampshire: A teacher institute on uses of local culture in the secondary school classroom.

Council member (2000-present), New England American Studies Association

Visiting professor, Utrecht University (the Netherlands)

Currently working on a book on Jewish life in rural New England

I usually tell people who ask me that my favorite �thing� about teaching is the students themselves. I love teaching because it�s allowed me to pursue my love of meaningful discourse and critical insight.  But an equally important reason is that it turns intellectual work into a collective and profoundly social endeavor.

            If you are in one of my courses, count on me to ask you to: 1) Reflect on your learning process.  Knowing what you�re learning and where it fits in your life is more important, as far as I�m concerned, than simply acquiring facts.  If you have great ideas about Huck Finn or Brer Rabbit, you need to know why those ideas are important and why other people ought to know about them too.  2) Participate.  You will learn as much from one another as you will from me.  That means you owe it to one another to speak up in class, take the work seriously and have fun together.

            My family and I live at the foot of Walnut Hill, near the confluence of Clesson Brook and the Deerfield River, in Buckland, MA.  My wife Janice is a painter and my kids-Della (11) and Langy (7)-are experts in the arts and sciences.  Our 5-acre homestead grows dogs, chickens, goats, barn cats, pumpkins, pansies, bush beans and lots of milkweed.  I like to run and cycle up steep hills.