- Gerard Bowers
- Professor
- Eaton 216
- 503-370-6248
- gbowers@willamette.edu
Gerard Bowers
Some of my favorite courses to teach are essentially creative writing courses: Poetics and Practice (English 239) and The Essay: Nature Writing (English 242). As for literature, I like to teach The Lyric (English 361), which on alternative years is either English Romantic Poets or American Contemporary Poets. Actually, any course about how to read good poems is what I like, whether the course be introductory level (English 201) or advanced (Humanities 497). I also have a special interest in Asian literature, philosophy and culture, as reflected in my 11 years of teaching at TIUA and in my current course on Asian and American Nature poetry (English 118).
My specific scholarly and pedagogical interests continue to be an extension of my long-term fascination with English Romantic poetry. That is, I see my interests as developing within an “organicist” tradition that moves from Renaissance humanism, through the Romantic Movement in England and America, and through to the “holistic” and "sustainable" movements of the present day. I believe that a new organicist shift in American culture is going to be effected mainly by the economic and culture impact of India and China. Asian culture, centered in nature, opposes yet complements the cultural assumptions of the west in a way that—through my studies--I've experienced as healing and therapeutic. This is why, in addition to courses in American and British poetry, I also teach a world literature course featuring Indian and Chinese Buddhist and Taoist texts.
Interests
English Romantic Poetry; American Romantic, Modernist, and Postmodern Poetry; Asian Poetry and Culture.