Ƶ

Skip to main content
Site navigation
School of English and Interdisciplinary Studies

Paul Baggett

Paul Baggett Profile Picture

Title

Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator

Office Building

Pugsley Center

Office

425

Mailing Address

Pugsley Cont Ed Center 425
English-Box 2218
University Station
Brookings, SD 57007

Biography

Paul Baggett is associate professor and graduate coordinator of English and Interdisciplinary Studies. He specializes in American literature and culture from the 19th century to the present. His research includes studies in American literary naturalism, African American literature, American Indian and other Indigenous literatures and Western American literature, with particular interests in the intersections of literature, human rights and environmental justice. His work has appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Jack London (Oxford, 2017), The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism (Lexington Books, 2023), and New Approaches to the Doppelganger in Literature and Culture (Routledge, forthcoming in 2026).

Education

  • B.A. in english | University of California, Irvine
  • M.A. in english | California State University, Long Beach
  • Ph.D. in english | University of Miami, Coral Gables

Academic Interests

  • American literature and culture
  • Literary naturalism
  • Environmental literature
  • Literature and human rights
  • American Indian literature
  • African American literature
  • Literature of the American west
  • South Dakota literature

Academic Responsibilities

  • Graduate coordinator of M.A./M.S. programs in English and interdisciplinary studies
  • Affiliated faculty of American Indian Studies
  • Affiliated faculty of Honors College
  • Peer reviewer for ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Studies in American Literary Naturalism, Studies in American Fiction and Fordham UP. 

Committees and Professional Memberships

  • Modern Language Association
  • C19: Society of 19th Century Americanists
  • Society for the Study of American Literary Naturalism
  • Jack London Society
  • Charles Chesnutt Association
  • Rebecca Harding Davis Society

Awards and Honors

  • 2023, Excellence in Honors Engagement, Van D. and Barbara B. Fishback Honors College Convocation Award 
  • 2019, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science's Award for Outstanding Service, South Dakota State University
  • 2017, Outstanding Experiential Learning Educators, South Dakota State University
  • 2014, J.P. Hendrickson Faculty Scholar and Herbert Cheever Jr. Liberal Arts Distinguished Lecturer, South Dakota State University

Publications

Conference Presentations

  1. “Bridging Worlds: Literary Naturalism and Indigenous Knowledge in Diane Wilson's The Seed Keeper,” International Symposium for Teaching American Literary Naturalism in the 21st Century, October 2024, University of Gävle, Sweden. 
  2. "Anthropomorphism Reconsidered: Nature Faking in Jack London’s ‘All Gold Canyon.” Ƶ Faculty Excellence Expo, February, 2024, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD. 
  3. “Is Anything Funny? Exposing the Humor in the Life and Work of Jack London (Roundtable. Panelist). Jack London Society 16th Biennial Symposium, October, 2023, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. 
  4. “In Defense of Anthropomorphism: Jack London’s ‘All Gold Canyon’.” Jack London Society 16th Biennial Symposium, October, 2023, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. 
  5. “Anthropomorphism Reconsidered: Nature Faking in Jack London’s ‘All Gold Canyon.” American Literature Association, May, 2023, Boston, MA. 
  6. "Anthropomorphism Reconsidered: The Politics of 'Nature Faking' in Jack London's 'All Gold Canyon'." English Colloquium, February 27, 2023, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD.
  7. "What We Read in 101 and Why: Stories of Curriculum, A Curriculum of Stories.” Minnesota Writing and English Conference, April 5-6, 2019, Minneapolis, MN.
  8. "Spectacles of Empire, Empire of Spectacle: Jack London in the South Seas." American Literature Association Conference, May 2018, San Francisco, CA.
  9. "Corporeal Conundrums of a Famous Author." Jack London Biennial Symposium, September 15-17, 2016, Napa, CA.
  10. "Jack London and Physical Culture." “Jack London and Physical Culture.” American Literature Association Conference, May, 2016, San Francisco, CA.
  11. “Reinvigorating Intellectual Culture in Honors,” National Collegiate Honors Council Conference, November 14, 2015, Chicago, IL.
  12. "Pushing the Boundaries of Gender and Genre: South Dakota Women’s Literature. College of Arts and Sciences' J.P. Hendrickson Faculty Scholar award and Herbert Cheever Jr. Liberal Arts Lecture, January, 2014, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD.  
  13. “Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Age of Occupy.” American Literature Association Annual Conference, May 2013, Boston, MA.
  14. “Nella Larsen and the Ambivalence of Embodied Black Spectacle.”14th Annual Modernist Studies Association: Modernism and Spectacle.” October, 2012, Las Vegas, NV.
  15. “Aesthetics, Politics and the ‘Unfinished Work’ of the Korl Woman.” Craft, Critique, Culture Conference: The Art of Revolution, March 2012. University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
  16. “Politics Through the Back Door: An Inquiry into Chesnutt’s Aesthetic Practice.” American Literature Association Annual Conference, May, 2011. Boston, MA.
  17. “Why South Dakota Literature Matters.” Sewrey Colloquium Lecture. February, 2010. South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD.
  18. “Aesthetic Autonomy in the Capitalist Public Sphere: Jack London’s Martin Eden.” National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations Conference, March 20, 2008, San Francisco, CA.
  19. “The Incorporation of the Body of Jack London,” 32nd Modern Literature Conference, Michigan State University, October 23, 1999, East Lansing, MI.
  20. “Transcending the Boundaries of Nation: Images and Imaginings of Frederick Douglass,” Creighton Conference on Language and Literature, March 20, 1998, Creighton University, Omaha, NE.
  21. “Caught Between Homes: Mary Seacole and the Question of Cultural Identity,” 17th Annual West Indian Literature Conference, Spring, 1998, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica.

Publications

  1. “Jack London’s “Miserable Double[s].” New Approaches to the Doppelganger in Literature and Culture. Eds. Anita Duneer and Pamela Bedore, Routledge Press. (forthcoming in 2026).
  2. Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer, by Iris Jamahl Dunkle (Review). Pacific Northwest Quarterly. (forthcoming).
  3. “Reinvigorating Intellectual Culture in Honors Composition:  A Provocation,” with Michael Keller (Writing on the Edge. UC Davis, under review).
  4. The Complete Works of Jack London, Vol. 7 Editor [Theft: A Four Act Play, The Scorn of Women, Moon-face and Other Stories, and White Fang]. Oxford UP. (forthcoming)
  5. “Anthropomorphism Reconsidered: 'Nature Faking' in Jack London's 'All Gold Canyon'." The Nonhuman in American Literary Naturalism. Edited by Karin Danielsson and Kenneth Brandt. Lexington Books/Rowman Littlefield, 2023.
  6. "Jack London and Physical Culture." The Oxford Handbook of Jack London. Ed. Jay Williams. New York: Oxford UP, 2017. 490-504.
  7. Literature and Photography in Transition, 1850-1915, by Owen Clayton. (Review) Studies in American Naturalism. Ed. Keith Newlin. Volume 11, Number 2 (Winter 2016). 84-88.
  8. “South Dakota Literature.” Dictionary of Midwestern Literature. Ed. Philip A. Greasley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016. 792-810.  
  9. “Poetry and Prose in Action: South Dakota Women Writers.” Action, Impact, Voice: Contemporary South Dakota Women. Ed. Meredith Redlin et al. South Dakota Agricultural Museum, 2015. 83-93.
  10. “Charles Chesnutt and the ‘Province of Literature’.” North Carolina Literary Review, No. 23, 2014, 80-94.
  11. Infinite West: Travels in South Dakota by Fraser Harrison. (review). Great Plains Quarterly, Volume 34, Number 2, Spring 2014, pp. 192-193.
  12. “Caught Between Homes: Mary Seacole and the Question of Cultural Identity.” MaComére: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women and Writers and Scholars 3 (2000): 45-56.
  13. “Transcending the Boundaries of Nation: Images and Imaginings of Frederick Douglass.” In Process: A Journal of African American and African Diasporan Literature and Culture 2 (2000): 103-13.

Department(s)