Hilary E. Wyss comes to Trinity’s English Department after nearly twenty years at Auburn University, where she taught courses on early American women writers, transatlantic eighteenth-century writing, Native American literature, and early American life-writing. She is the author of over a dozen articles and book chapters as well as three books on Native American literacy practices in early America. She has served on the editorial board of the journals Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture and Early American Literature, and as President of the Society of Early Americanists. She has won teaching awards at Auburn University as well as national research grants to support her work.  

Hilary’s teaching is guided by the idea that bringing forward materials by underrepresented figures complicates and enriches our understanding of American literature. From court petitions to oral testimonies, letters, and even artifacts of material culture, Hilary encourages her students to explore the ways writing shapes our understanding of American identity both in the past and today.

curriculum vitae

Selected Publications:

• Hilary E. Wyss. English Letters and Indian Literacies: Reading, Writing, and New England Missionary Schools, 1750-1830. The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
  
• Kristina Bross and Hilary E. Wyss, eds.  Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology. University of Massachusetts Press, 2008.
  
• Hilary E. Wyss. Writing Indians: Literacy, Christianity, and Native Community in Early America. University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. Reissued in paperback 2003.
  
• Hilary E. Wyss and Lance Newman, eds. American Literature, volume I, second edition. William Cain, general editor. Penguin Academics, 2014.
• Hilary E. Wyss. “Eighteenth-Century Letter-Writing and Native American Community.” Common-Place 16, no. 2 (Winter 2016).
  
• Hilary E. Wyss and Stephanie Fitzgerald. “Land and Literacy: The Textualities of Native Studies.” Special joint edition of American Literary History 22, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 271-280 and Early American Literature.
  
• Hilary E. Wyss and Steve Hackel. “Print Culture and the Power of Native Literacy in California and New England Missions.” In Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of Early America's Religious Landscape, edited by Joel Martin and Mark Nichols, 201-222. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
  
• Hilary E. Wyss. “Beyond the Printed Word: Native Women’s Literacy Practices in Colonial New England.”  In Cultural Narratives:  Textuality and Performance in the United States before 1900, edited by Sandra Gustafson and Caroline Sloat, 118-136. University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.
  
• Hilary E. Wyss. “Reading and Writing Indians: Native American Literacy in Colonial New England.” Common-Place 9, no. 3 (April 2009).
  
• Hilary E. Wyss. “Native Women Writing: Reading between the Lines.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. Jubilee edition of the journal (Spring 2007): 1-7.
  
• Hilary E. Wyss. “Mary Occom and Sarah Simon: Gender and Native Literacy in Colonial New England.” The New England Quarterly 79, no. 3 (2006): 387-412.
  

• Academy of Outstanding Teachers in the College of Liberal Arts, Professional Excellence in Teaching and Learning Committee (PETL), College of Liberal Arts, Auburn University 2015.
• ASECS Short Term Research Grant, American Antiquarian Society, Summer 2006.
• ACLS /Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Junior Faculty, American Council of Learned Societies, New York 2003.
• Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award. Graduate Student Council, Auburn University 2001-02.
• Membership in the American Antiquarian Society, 202 Annual meeting of the society. In recognition of scholarly and professional contribution 2014.