ROBERT K. NELSON
College of William & Mary
James Blair 354
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
rknels@wm.edu

EDUCATION

2006
Ph.D. in American Studies, The College of William & Mary.
Dissertation: "Society of Souls: Spirit, Friendship, and the Antebellum Reform Imagination."
1998
MA in American Studies, The College of William & Mary.
1995
BA in History, The University of Puget Sound, magna cum laude.

PUBLICATIONS

Articles

Spring 2004
"'The forgetfulness of sex': Devotion and Desire in the Courtship Letters of Angelina Grimké and Theodore Dwight Weld," Journal of Social History 37 (Spring 2004): 663-679.
September 2001
"Debating Manliness: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William Sloane Kennedy, and the Question of Whitman" (co-authored with Kenneth M. Price), American Literature 73 (September 2001): 496-524.

Reviews and Entries

2008
Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature, by Ivy Schweitzer, Legacy 25.1 (2008): 164-164.
2006
"Elihu Burritt" and "Theodore Dwight Weld," in Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition, ed. Peter Hinks and John McKivigan, 2 vols. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006).
June 2003
The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race, by John Stauffer, and Truth Stranger than Fiction: Race, Realism, and the U.S. Literary Marketplace, by Augusta Rohrbach, American Literature 75 (June 2003): 433-435.
June 2003
Wright American Fiction 1851-1875, Journal of American History 90 (June 2003): 336-337.
2003
"Abolitionism," "The Jungle," and "Reform Movements," in American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Bret Carroll (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003).

PRESENTATIONS

July 2006
"'Our professed friends': Abolitionism's Politics of Pathos," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Annual Meeting, Montréal, Canada.
September 2005
Summit on Digital Tools for the Humanities (invited participant), Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), Charlottesville, Virginia.
November 2004
"The Williamsburg Theatre Project: Creating a Collaborative World Wide Web Database" (presented with Arthur Knight), American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia.
July 2004
"'Stronger ties than those of consanguity': Elihu Burritt and the Work of International Friendship," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Annual Meeting, Providence, Rhode Island.
March 2004
"The Williamsburg Theater Project: Creating a Collaborative World Wide Web Database" (presented with Arthur Knight), Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts.
February 2004
"The Williamsburg Theater Project: Creating a Collaborative World Wide Web Database" (invited presentation, with Arthur Knight), Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park.
June 2003
"The Williamsburg Theater Project" (presented with Arthur Knight), "American Cinema and Everyday Life" Commonwealth Center Fund conference, London, England.
April 2003
"'The forgetfulness of sex': Charles Stuart in the Courtship Letters of Angelina Grimké and Theodore Dwight Weld," Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana.
May 2002
"Shared Pleasures, Digitized: Creating a Web-Based Database of Film Exhibition" (presented with Arthur Knight), Society for Cinema Studies convention, Denver, Colorado.
July 2001
"'The Classroom Electric', the Web, and Book History" (roundtable panelist), Society for the History of Authorship, Readership, and Publication Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia.
April 2001
"'The forgetfulness of sex': Charles Stuart in the Courtship Letters of Angelina Grimké and Theodore Dwight Weld," Making Sense of Differences Conference, Richmond, Virginia.
April 2000
"'We use a different rhetoric': Emerson and the Challenge of Fuller's Conversations," New England Modern Language Association Convention, Buffalo, New York.
October 1998
"'A new world somehow to me': Whitman, Young Soldiers, and Romantic Male Friendship in Civil War Washington," Many Cultures of Walt Whitman conference, Camden, New Jersey.

TEACHING

History 212: "The Abolitionists and American Society," College of William & Mary.
American Studies 150W: "Slavery in American Culture and Thought," College of William & Mary.

FELLOWSHIPS

2000
Price Visiting Research Fellowship, William L. Clements Library, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

DIGITAL PROJECTS

"The Williamsburg Theater Project" <http://www.wm.edu/americanstudies/wtp/>
"Help Us Listen" <http://helpuslisten.wm.edu/>
"The Encyclopedy Project" <http://www.wm.edu/history/rbsche/>
"Whitman's Memory" <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/fdw/volume2/price/>

ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT

2008-
Associate Director, Digital Scholarship Lab, the University of Richmond.
2000-2008
Technical Liaison to the Humanities at the College of William & Mary.
1998-2000
Project Manager (1999-2000) and Editorial Assistant (1998-1999) for the Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive.
1997-1998
Editorial Apprentice at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia.

SERVICE

March 2006
"Blogging in Class and Outside the Classroom" presentation made with James P. Whittenburg at College of William & Mary Faculty Teaching workshop.
2005-2006
Faculty of Arts & Science Space Planning Committee
2003-2005
Presentation and Technology Team (SACS Accreditation Project).
2003-2005
Project Working Group (SACS Accreditation Project).
February 2003
"Getting the Most Out of Blackboard" presentation made with Mike Blum at College of William & Mary Faculty Teaching workshop.
1999-2000
President of American Studies Graduate Student Organization.
1998-1999
Member of Search Committee for Director of American Studies.
1997-1998
Vice President of American Studies Graduate Student Organization.