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James Giles

Distinguished Professor Emeritus

19th- and 20th-century American Literature, African American Literature, Nelson Algren

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Email: jgiles@niu.edu

Educational Background


Ph.D. The University of Texas; 1966

M.A. Texas Christian University; 1961

B.A. Texas Christian University;


Professional Interests


My academic interests are American literary naturalism, the American urban novel, and violence in contemporary American fiction. I have written nine books, co-edited eight others, and published more than thirty critical essays, short stories, personal essays, and entries in reference books. My most recent publications have been Twenty-First-Century American Fiction, the sixth volume of The Dictionary of Literary Biography edited by Wanda H. Giles and me (2009) and essays in Studies in American Naturalism (2008), and A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction (Wylie-Blackwell, 2010). My story on the University of Texas Tower shootings, one of the experiences that led to my studies of violence, was reprinted in Don Graham's Literary Austin (TCU Press, 2007). I am a member of the editorial boards of Philological Review and Studies in American Naturalism. Like David Gorman, I just like literature a lot.
Selected Publications >

Awards >

Selected Awards

Received the Presidential Teaching Professorship in 2004-2007 from Northern Illinois University Received the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2002 from Northern Illinois University

Selected Publications

  • "The City Novel." In A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction, ed. David Seed. (Chicester, W. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 24-35.
  • "The Multilayered Determinism of Richard Price's Bloodbrothers and Larry Brown's Father and Son," Studies in American Naturalism 3 (Winter 2008): 147-70.
  • The Spaces of Violence. University of Alabama Press, 2006.
  • Approaches to Teaching the Works of Louise Erdich (co-edited, MLA Press, 2004).
  • Violence in the Contemporary American Novel (University of South Carolina Press, 2000).
  • Understanding Hubert Selby, Jr. (University of South Carolina Press, 1998).
  • The Naturalistic Inner-City Novel in America (University of South Carolina Press, 1995).
  • Volumes 143, 152, 173, 227, 278, and 350 of The Dictionary of Literary Biography (with Wanda H. Giles).