Professor of English
Christopher Diller began his Berry career as Assistant Professor of English, Rhetoric, and Writing in 1999 and then became an Associate Professor of English, Rhetoric, and Writing in 2005. He also directed the Writing Center from 2005-2015. He became a full professor in 2014.
Education
- B.A. in English (with honors), Miami University (Ohio)
- M.A. in Languages and Literature, Northwestern University
- Ph.D. in English/American Studies, University of Utah
Teaching Interests
Regardless of subject matter (from first-year writing to Romantic American literature to contemporary popular literature) Dr. Diller asks his students to “say more about less.” His most recent teaching integrates statistical modes of literary analysis and geospatial mapping—most recently in an upper division class devoted solely to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—and he also teaches classes that include both classic literary texts and popular writers like Stephen King.
Research Interests
An American studies scholar, Dr. Diller’s scholarship is anchored in archival research and in the antislavery and reform literature of the American nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is currently creating an edition of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853) with historian Professor Karen B. Cook-Bell of Bowie State University for Broadview Press (forthcoming in 2025).
Selected Publications
Books:
- Nathaniel Hawthorne in the College Classroom: Contexts, Materials, and Approaches. Eds. Christopher Diller and Samuel Coaled. Brighton England: Edward Everett Root Publishers, 2018.
- Uncle Tom's Cabin. Editor and Introduction. Petersborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2009
Articles and Essays:
- “Dracula in the Undergraduate Digital Classroom.” Approaches to Teaching Bram Stoker’s
Dracula. Ed. William McBride. Modern Language Association (forthcoming 2024). - “An Unpublished ‘Family Heirloom:’ Frederick William Beecher’s 1855 Williams College Journal.” Resources for American Literary Study, 44. 1-2, (Spring 2022): 142-155.
- "Democratic Doxa: Toward a Genealogy of Typicality in Nationalist American Literature." American Multiculturalism in International Context. Ed. and intro. Samuel Ludwig. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. 31-46
- "Signifying on Stowe: Ralph Ellison and the Sentimental Subtext of Invisible Man" in MLQ: A Journey of Literary History, 75.4 (December 2014):487-509.
- "A Twentieth-Century Abolitionist: John Beecher's Plainspoken Poetry" African American Review 47.2/3, Summer/Fall 2014: 339-356