Dr. Douglas Trevor Root

Dr. Root has been teaching at the college level since 2003, and although the bulk of his teaching experience involves freshman composition, he considers himself more at home in the literature classroom.

Biography

Dr. Root was born in Northern Virginia, 50 miles south of Washington, D.C. His dad worked for the Department of Defense and his mom is an art teacher. He has an older brother who works in insurance. People laugh when he tells them that he did not have cable TV until he was a teenager and that, for eighteen years, he did not have air conditioning or central heat in his house. Needless to say, he did not live high on the hog, but he thinks that not having much fueled his work ethic, which contributes to a message he always try to convey to his students: natural talent only takes a person so far. He is proof of this, as he is much more diligent and persistent than he is talented (at least he believes).

He married my wife in June 2015 and moved to Orangeburg in August 2015 to teach at Claflin University, and he can honestly say that it is the best place he has ever worked. Outside of the classroom, he enjoys archery, listening to music (old school rap, 80’s rock, and funk), cooking, reading, and collecting sports cards and autographed memorabilia.

Education

• Bachelor’s Degree: Virginia Tech, 2002
• Master’s Degree: The Florida State University, 2005
• Ph. D: The University of Georgia, 2010

Research Interests

• Autobiography
• 18th century British Literature
• Humor in Literature
• Professional Wrestling
• English History
• Rap Music
• African American Literature

Recent Publications

• “Voltaire and Samuel Johnson’s ‘Petty Cavils’ on English Literature” Eds. W. Jasiakiewicz and J. Lipski, John Bull and the Continent (Bern: Peter Lang Academic Publishers, 2015), pgs. 103-124. http://www.peterlang.com/download/toc/81270/toc_265320.pdf

• “Two Most Un-Clubbable Men: Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson’s Social Circles” Ed. Ileana Baird, Social Networks in the Long Eighteenth Century: Clubs, Literary Salons, Textual Coteries(Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014), pgs. 243-266. http://www.cambridgescholars.com/social-networks-in-the-long-eighteenth-century

• “William Blake: The Alternative Romantic.” To be included in Rock and Romanticism,Ed. James Rovira. (Essay completed and submitted).

• “Walden: The Utopian Dystopia.” Submitted to Utopian Studies (awaiting response).

• Literature Review: “’The March of Intimacy’: Dr. Burney and Dr. Johnson.” To be featured in Eighteenth Century Life: New Perspectives on the Burney Family, Ed. Sophie Colombeau. Duke University Press, 2017.