Sebastian Williams, PhD is an assistant professor of English at Tiffin University. His research focuses on modern global literature and culture (1890-1945), with a focus on animal studies, environmental humanities, and medical humanities. His most recent publications appear in the Journal of Medical Humanities, ISLE, the Journal of Popular Culture, and South Asian Review, among others. His book is titled Modernist Parasites: Bioethics, Dependency and Literature, post-1900 (Bloomsbury, 2023).
His current book project analyzes nonhuman animals and natural environments in children’s literature and education. This work examines how we often conceptualize children as “not yet fully human” as well as how children’s literature shapes our ethical worldviews. Early research related to this project has appeared in Woolf Studies Annual and The Lion and the Unicorn.
Sebastian teaches a variety of courses on rhetoric, community writing, and media. Previously, he worked as an Assistant Professor of English at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, WV.
He also has an academic podcast called The Modernist Studies Podcast [access on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Soundcloud].
Outside of academia, Sebastian worked in digital marketing for several years, and he’s a proponent of interdisciplinarity and the public humanities. As such, he’s participated in programs such as the Spring Academy in Heidelberg, Germany and the Andrew Mellon Foundation’s National Humanities Without Walls program (for which he’s also an Alumni Board Member).
Media Mentions
- 2024 – MLA Press Release: Davis & Elkins College Environmental Humanities Project
- 2023 – Humanities Without Walls – Board Spotlight
- 2021 – Davis & Elkins College – Joining English Faculty
To contact Sebastian, email WilliamsSeb@tiffin.edu.