David Gay, BA, MA Queen's, PhD Alberta

About

I am Professor Emeritus of English Literature. Over the past five decades, I have taught first-year courses and undergraduate courses in the history of reading, Milton, Shakespeare, sixteenth and seventeenth-century literature, Religion and literature, the Bible and literature, and special topics for upper level undergraduate and graduate students, including a courses on William Blake. I served recently as President of the International John Bunyan Society (2016-19), a scholarly community that focuses on Dissent and Nonconformity in the Long Reformation. I am continuing with a research project on reading urban spaces in literature and currently serve as co-editor with Rachel Adcock (Keele University UK) of Bunyan Studies: A Journal of Reformation and Nonconformist Culture.

Research

Books include The Endless Kingdom: Milton’s Scriptural Society (Delaware University Press, 2002) and Gifts and Graces: Prayer, Poetry, and Polemic from Lancelot Andrewes to John Bunyan (University of Toronto Press, 2021). Co-edited books include Locating the Past / Discovering the Present: Comparative Perspectives on Religion, Culture and Marginality with Stephen Reimer (University of Alberta Press, 2010) and Awakening Words: Bunyan and the Language of Community with Arlette Zinck and J.G. Randall  (Delaware UP 2002). Book chapters include “Bunyan in Prison: Writings from the 1660’s,” The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan, ed. Michael Davies and W.R. Owens (Oxford University Press, 2018). Current projects include reading urban spaces in literature.