Lawrence Buell (academic)

Lawrence Buell

Lawrence Ingalls Buell (born 1939) is Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Harvard University[1] and a foundational figure of ecocriticism.[2][3][4] He is the 2007 recipient of the Jay Hubbell Medal for lifetime achievement in American literary studies from the Modern Language Association.[5] He won the 2003 Warren–Brooks Award for literary criticism for his 2003 book on Ralph Waldo Emerson.[6][7] His Writing for an Endangered World won the 2001 John G. Cawelti Award for the best book in American culture studies from the Popular Culture Association.[8] He retired from Harvard in 2011.

Life and work

Buell earned an A.B. at Princeton University in 1961[9] before enrolling at Cornell University for his Ph.D., which he was awarded in 1966.[10] He was assistant professor and then professor at Oberlin College from 1966 until he moved to Harvard in 1990.[11][12][13]

He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1987.[14] He was the 2007 recipient of the Jay Hubbell Medal for lifetime achievement in American literary studies from the Modern Language Association.[5]

Harvard

Buell served as the Harvard College Dean of Undergraduate Education from 1992–1996;[11][15] during his tenure he set the precedent of weekly walk-in office hours open to all students.[16] He later chaired the English department[17] and served on the committee of the Graduate Program on History of American Civilization.[18]

Buell has been regularly asked for commentary by The Boston Globe and The Harvard Crimson concerning his views on undergraduate life.[19][20] Buell was part of the first class of Harvard College Professorships in 1998, a now-annual award for undergraduate teaching at Harvard University. The award comes with a semester of paid leave or an equivalent fund to support their scholarly work.[21]

He has been a professor emeritus at Harvard since retiring in 2011.

Family

Buell's mother, Marjorie Henderson Buell, was the creator of the Little Lulu comic strip, begun in the 1930s, under the pen name Marge. In July 2006, Lawrence Buell and his brother Fred donated her papers to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard. The papers include a collection of fan letters, comic books, scrapbooks, and a complete set of the newspaper cartoons.[22] The then-president of Harvard and then-dean of the Radcliffe Institute Drew Gilpin Faust had suggested the donation after discovering that Marge was Buell’s mother.[23]

Lawrence Buell's brother Fred is a poet, literary critic, and professor at Queens College, New York.[24]

Research interests

Buell's research interests include American literature, cultural history of the United States, transcendentalism, and ecocriticism.[1][25]

Transcendentalism

Emerson

Buell's book Emerson was published in 2003. The book won critical acclaim,[26][27] receiving the 2003 Warren-Brooks Award. The jury commended its "elegant, clear-speaking style, notably free of pretentious academic jargon."[7]

Thinking Disobediently

In October 2023, Buell published Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently, a continuation of his research on transcendentalist authors. Buell has said that, similar to Emerson, this book is aimed for the general public.[28]

Ecocriticism

He is widely considered a pioneer of ecocriticism,[8][29][30] although his 2005 book The Future of Environmental Criticism uses "environmental criticism" in lieu of ecocriticism in both the title and preface to the book, claiming this usage as a "strategic ambiguity" which distances his work from a "cartoon image" of the field "no longer applicable today, if indeed it ever really was."[31]

His book Writing for an Endangered World won the 2001 John G. Cawelti Award for the best book in American culture studies from the Popular Culture Association.[8]

Bibliography

  • Literary Transcendentalism: Style and Vision in the American Renaissance (Cornell University Press, 1973)
  • The Morgesons and Other Writings, Published and Unpublished, by Elizabeth Stoddard (editor with Sandra A. Zagarell, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984)
  • New England Literary Culture: From Revolution through Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 1986)
  • The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (Harvard University Press, 1995)
  • Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the United States and Beyond (Harvard University Press, 2001)
  • Emerson (Harvard University Press, 2003)
  • The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)
  • The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings (editor, Modern Library, 2006)
  • Shades of the Planet: American Literature as World Literature (editor with Wai Chee Dimock, Princeton University Press, 2007)
  • The Dream of the Great American Novel (Harvard University Press, 2014)
  • Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently (Oxford University Press, 2023)
  • Henry David Thoreau: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2025)

References

  1. 1 2 "Lawrence Buell". Harvard University Department of English.
  2. ↑ Buell, Lawrence (2011-12-01). "Ecocriticism". Qui Parle. 19 (2): 87–115. doi:10.5250/quiparle.19.2.0087. ISSN 1041-8385.
  3. ↑ Kern, R. (2000-01-01). "Ecocriticism what Is It Good For?". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 7 (1): 9–32. doi:10.1093/isle/7.1.9. ISSN 1076-0962.
  4. ↑ M S, Saloni (2026-05-31). "Ecocritical Study of Perumal Murugan's Poonachi". Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal. 15 (3): 72–84. doi:10.66376/galaxy.v15.n3.5. ISSN 2278-9529.
  5. 1 2 "Lawrence Buell". The Walden Woods Project. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  6. ↑ "Previous Winners of the Warren-Brooks Award". Center for Robert Penn Warren Studies at Western Kentucky University. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  7. 1 2 "Lawrence Buell's 'Emerson' wins award". Harvard Gazette. 2004-04-08. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  8. 1 2 3 Fiedorczuk, Julia (2011). "The Problems of Environmental Criticism: An Interview with Lawrence Buell". Polish Journal for American Studies (5): 7–13. ISSN 1733-9154.
  9. ↑ "Lawrence Buell '61". Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  10. ↑ "2015 Olin Lecture - Lawrence Buell". Cornell. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  11. 1 2 Weiss, Joanna M. (June 4, 1992). "Lawrence Buell Eases Into New Deanship". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  12. ↑ Winkler, Karen J. (1996-08-09). "Literary Scholars Take Diversity of Approaches to Ecocriticism". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  13. ↑ Hansen, Jamie (April 22, 2005). "The great American novel". The Oberlin Review. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  14. ↑ "Lawrence Buell". Guggenheim Fellowship. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  15. ↑ Pravda, Douglas M. (June 6, 1996). "Buell Leaves Deanship For Teaching". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  16. ↑ Seltzer, Wendy M. (October 3, 1992). "Dean Buell Holds Office Hours". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  17. ↑ Bhattacharyya, Amrita (June 2017). "An Ecocritical Reading of Select Northeast Indian English Poetry" (PDF). The Literary Herald. 3 (1): 961.
  18. ↑ "Lawrence Buell". Harvard University History of American Civilization. Archived from the original on 2007-02-04.
  19. ↑ Bombardieri, Marcella (March 29, 2005). "Student life at Harvard lags peer schools, poll finds". The Boston Globe. ISSN 0743-1791. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  20. ↑ Galloni, Alessandra M. (November 11, 1993). "New Ethnic Studies Committee Planned". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  21. ↑ Powell, Alvin (April 16, 1998). "Five Professors Honored". The Harvard Gazette. Archived from the original on 1999-08-19.
  22. ↑ Gewertz, Ken (2006-11-02). "Little Lulu comes to Harvard". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  23. ↑ Zhou, Lulu (November 6, 2006). "Little Lulu Goes to Harvard". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  24. ↑ "Buell, Frederick (Henderson)". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  25. ↑ "Lawrence Buell". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  26. ↑ Wineapple, Brenda (August 10, 2003). "Song of Himself". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2012-05-21. Retrieved 2026-07-09.
  27. ↑ Frost, Bryan-Paul (April 2005). "Individualism, Emersonian Style". Polity. 37 (2): 286–293. doi:10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300014. ISSN 0032-3497.
  28. ↑ AmericanAntiquarian (2023-10-13). “Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently”. Retrieved 2026-07-09 – via YouTube.
  29. ↑ Lavenia, Ryca Anggun; Ulwatunnisa, Marwah (2026-04-05). "Representasi Krisis Ekologis dalam Cerita Rakyat Genting dan Gentas: Kajian Ekokritik Sastra Lawrence Buell". Pena: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra. 16 (2): 1–15. doi:10.22437/pena.v16i2.53918. ISSN 2615-7705.
  30. ↑ Selden, Raman; Widdowson, Peter; Brooker, Peter (2016), "Ecocriticism, Animal Studies, Thing Theory", A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (6th ed.), Routledge, pp. 272–289, doi:10.4324/9781315688992-19
  31. ↑ Buell, Lawrence (2009). The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. John Wiley & Sons. p. viii. ISBN 978-1-4051-5197-9.
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