William Rivers

Professor
Interim Chair

Office: 109 Humanities Office Building,
(803) 777-7120
riversw@sc.edu

Education

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1968-1976
Ph.D. Spring 1976
M.A. Spring l971

Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1964--1968
B.A. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa

Specialization Areas

• Eighteenth-Century British Literature,
• Composition and Rhetoric, and
• History of the Book and Authorship

Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

• ENGL 701A: Teaching of Composition in College
• ENGL 701B: Teaching of Composition and Literature in College
• ENGL 895 Teaching Business and Technical Writing
• ENGL 815B The Eighteenth-Century Periodical 

Selected Grants and Honors

William L. Mitchell Prize for Bibliography or Documentary Work on Early British Periodicals or Newspapers. Awarded by the Bibliographical Society of America in 2006 for Nicholas Amhurst, Terrae Filius; or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford (1721; 1726). (A Modern Critical Edition) Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004. See http://www.bibsocamer.org/

The Folger Institute: four grants totaling over $12, 000 to support research in the Folger Shakespeare Library and to attend seminars on documentary editing and seventeenth and eighteenth-century history and politics.

NCR--Columbia: $154,150 plus equipment to establish and operate the NCR-USC Document Validation Laboratory and a technical writing resource center. January 1988--December 1995.

Current Research Project(s)

Nicholas Amhurst's Contributions to The Craftsman. (Amhurst's contributions included both lead essays and poetry. This project will include at least three separate volumes: two volumes of Amhurst's Craftsman essays and one volume of his poetic contributions.)

An edition of Nicholas Amhurst's collected poetry, 1717-1726. (This project will probably produce two separate volumes.)

Articles and presentations on the periodical literature of England during the 1710s, 20s, and 30s.

Publications

Books

Nicholas Amhurst, Terrae Filius; or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford (1721; 1726). (A Modern Critical Edition) Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004.

Issues and Images: An Argument Reader. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich: Ft. Worth, TX., 1993.

Business Reports: Samples from the "Real World." Prentice Hall, Inc.: Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1981.

Twenty-two Articles or Book Chapters on Writing, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Issues in major refereed Journals including Papers on Language and Literature; Eighteenth Century Life; The Journal of Business Communication; The Journal of Business and Technical Writing; or books published by the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing; Modern Language Association; Random House; Association of Business Communication; or The National Council of Teachers of English.

Over thirty Papers presented at Professional Meetings (International, National, Regional, and Local) on Writing, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Issues. Venues include College Conference on Composition and Communication, Modern Language Association (national and regional conferences), Society for Technical Communication (international and local meetings), Association for Business Communication (international and regional conferences), The Victorian Institute, Conference on Technology and the Humanities, Southern Humanities Conference, Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, among others.