Thomas W. Howard

Thomas is a doctoral candidate studying nineteenth-century American literature, especially American Transcendentalism and pragmatism, along with critical interests in cognitive literary studies and affect theory. His dissertation, “Pragmatic Ambiguities: Aphoristic Thinking in the American Nineteenth Century,” follows a stream of thought among nineteenth-century nonfiction authors, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William James, and W. E. B. Du Bois, who use aphoristic language to engage readers in a continuous process of interpretation.

Thomas is currently on a Fulbright research grant in Germany. He is being hosted by the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, part of Freie Universität Berlin.