Bill Ellis

Background

Bill Ellis was born on January 3, 1950, in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. He was the son of William Robert and Mae Downs Ellis. William Rober Ellis is a railway claims agent. Mae Downs Ellis was a social worker.

Education

Bill Ellis attended the University of Virginia. He obtained a bachelor’s degree with high honors in 1972. In 1973 Bill studied at the Ohio State University and got a master’s degree in 1973. In 1978 Bill Ellis obtained a Doctor of Philosophy with distinction.

Career

From 1978 to 1982 Bill Ellis worked as a lecturer in English Department at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. In 1982 Bill became a visiting assistant professor at Indiana University, Folklore Institute. From 1982 to 1983 Bill was a supervisor at the Center for Textual Studies Department at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. From 1984 to 1990 Bill Ellis worked as an assistant professor at the Pennsylvania State University in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. In 1990 he became an associate professor of English and American studies at the Pennsylvania State University in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Bill Ellis is a media expert for television shows, including features by the Fox Family Network and Arts & Entertainment Network. He is also a participant in numerous scholarly meetings and conferences.

Bill Ellis currently teaches classes online for the Pennsylvania State World Campus. He is professor emeritus of English and American Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, where he taught a variety of classes in basic writing, technical writing, business writing, mythology, folklore studies, the Bible as literature, occult literature and American literature till 2009.

Bill Ellis is an author of Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media; Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live and Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture. Bill Ellis was an editor of Contemporary Legends in Emergence (monograph), California Folklore Society in 1990. He was also an editor of FOAFtale News (newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research) from 1989 to 1994. Bill was a contributor to books, including Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, edited by Jack Santino, the University of Tennessee Press, 1994; Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Taletellers, edited by William Barnard McCarthy, the University of North Carolina Press, 1994; and Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, edited by Thomas Green in 1997. Bill Ellis was also a contributor to various periodicals, including the Journal of American Folklore, Studies in the American Renaissance, Psychology Today, Skeptical Inquirer, and Fortean Times.

Achievements

• Bill Ellis contributed to the Anglo-American folkloristics and researched it in his book Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live. He is highly praised at the Pennsylvania State University in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media

    (Raising the Devil reveals how the Christian Pentecostal m...)

    2000
  • Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture

    (Despite their centuries-old history and traditions, witch...)

    2003
  • Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live

    (Ellis shows legends creating a sense of community in a mu...)

    2001
  • The Global Grapevine: Why Rumors of Terrorism, Immigration, and Trade Matter

    (Far from mere idle tales, rumors are a valuable window in...)

    2010

Religion

Bill Ellis is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Politics

Bill Ellis is a Democrat.

Views

Bill Ellis still believes that the study of folklore remains essential to an understanding of human culture at large. Information communicated orally and through computer networks is often as influential (or more so) than that disseminated through the media and official channels. And folklorists have a civic responsibility to address social problems directly rather than to veil their work in a hermetic, self-referential jargon.

Membership

Ellis has served as president of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research and of the Folk Narrative Section and Children's Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society.

• president

  International Society for Contemporary Legend Research , United States

  1994 - 1999

• president of the Folk Narrative Section

  American Folklore Society , United States

  1989 - 1998

• president of the Children’s Folklore Section

  American Folklore Society , United States

  1987 - 1989

• president of the Children’s Folklore Section

  American Folklore Society , United States

  1998 - 2000

• member

  Modem Language Association of America , United States

• member

  Pennsylvania Folklore Society , United States

• member

  Nathaniel Hawthorne Society , United States

Interests

• music, hiking, gardening, cooking, Japanese manga/anime, developmental writing, internet, web technology

Connections

Bill Ellis married Carol Ann Ellis on September 20, 1980. She is a writer and editor. They have a child Elizabeth May.

Father:

William Robert Ellis

Mother:

Mae Downs Ellis

Wife:

Carol Ann Ellis

Daughter:

Elizabeth May Ellis

colleague:

Sue Samuelson

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, TV, & Other Fields
  2010