UNC professor Philip F. Gura is a nonfiction finalist for a 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for his “American Transcendentalism: A History” (Hill and Wang). Award finalists in multiple categories were announced recently; winners will be named March 6.
The circle, founded in 1974, is an organization of about 700 book reviewers and editors. Nominees and winners are chosen by the group’s 24-member board of directors.
In “American Transcendentalism: A History,” Gura paints an accessible, comprehensive, narrative history of the Transcendentalists, America’s best known – and perhaps least understood – public intellectuals and reformers. He sheds new light on old favorites Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau while emphasizing significant contributions by lesser-known movers and shakers including Orestes Brownson, Margaret Fuller, Caroline Healey Dall and Theodore Parker.
Washington Post Michael Dirda wrote last month: “There’s nothing perfunctory or dryly academic about ‘American Transcendentalism.’ Gura writes a lean, impassioned prose, chockablock with anecdote and information. Gura underscores how much we remain the descendants of these still too little-known thinkers and crusaders.”
Gura, who has taught at UNC since 1987, is the William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Gura has research interests in early American literature, American Renaissance, the history of the book in America, 19th century popular culture and the history of American music. He holds appointments in English, American studies and religious studies.
Web site: http://www.bookcritics.org/
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093, spurrk@email.unc.edu