Thomas Winfield Cooley

Background

Thomas Winfield was born on the 24th of June, 1942 in Gaffney, South Carolina, United States. He is the son of Thomas Winfield and Vera (Carter) Cooley.

Education

Thomas Cooley attended Duke University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964. Also, he studied at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in 1968. In 1970, he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the same university.

Career

Thomas Winfield Cooley served in the United States Navy from 1964 to 1966. He joined the Ohio State University in Columbus in 1970 as an assistant professor, the post he held until 1979. From 1980 to 1998, he held the post of an associate professor there. In 1999, he accepted the post of a professor of English at the same university. Presently, he is an Emeritus Professor at the Ohio State University. Also, he is former director of the Writing Skills Laboratory at the university.

Thomas Cooley's research interests include American literature and culture, especially of the nineteenth century. He is the author of the books Educated Lives: The Rise of Modern Autobiography in America, that was written in 1976, The Norton Guide to Writing, published in 1992, and The Ivory Leg in the Ebony Cabinet: Madness, Race, and Gender in the American Consciousness, that came out in 2001. He has published articles on American literature and culture and served as an editor of The Norton Critical Edition of Huckleberry Finn, The Norton Sampler and Back to the Lake: A Reader for Writers.

Achievements

• Thomas Cooley is particularly known as the author of books and numerous articles, as well as an outstanding educator. He received the National Endowment for the Humanities research grants.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Ivory Leg in the Ebony Cabinet: Madness, Race, and Gender in the American Consciousness

    (From Samuel Morton's collection of Native American skulls...)

    2001
  • Educated Lives: The Rise of Modern Autobiography in America

    (Views the autobiographical writings of Henry Adams, Mark ...)

    1976
  • Back to the Lake 2009
  • The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition 1979
  • The Norton Guide to Writing 1992

Views

Thomas Cooley's research interests include American literature and culture, especially of the nineteenth century.

Quotations: "What interests me in all my work, including even the textbooks, is how narrative, especially self-narrative, is shaped by the writer's assumptions about how the mind works. Those assumptions are constantly changing, and after a while, it takes a historical leap to reconstruct them. But you can't accurately read narratives, fictional or otherwise, of an earlier time without making that leap."

Interests

• Music & Bands

  jazz drumming

Connections

Thomas Winfield Cooley was married twice. Presently, he is married to Barbara. They have one child.

Father:

Thomas Winfield Cooley

Mother:

Vera (Carter) Cooley

Wife:

Barbara Cooley