William (Bill) Stobb
Home: 2140 Market Street • La Crosse, WI 54601 • (608) 784-5737 • WEStobb@viterbo.edu
Office: 533 Murphy Center • Viterbo University • 900 Viterbo Drive • La Crosse, WI 54601
(608) 796-3486 ▪ http://www.viterbo.edu/personalpages/faculty/WStobb/Stobb.html
Current Position
2000 – 2005
Assistant Professor of English Composition and Creative Writing
Viterbo University, La Crosse, Wisconsin
Primary duties:
Teaching undergraduate courses in Composition, Creative Writing, and Theory for Writing and Rhetoric.
Coordinating Viterbo’s visiting writers series.
Chairing Writing Across the Curriculum committee and coordinating that committee’s work with Viterbo’s Title III Assessment Initiative.
Supervising Viterbo’s peer tutoring program for writing.
Supervising the production of Viterbo’s art and literature journal, Touchstone.
Chairing Viterbo’s first-year writing committee.
Co-director of Viterbo’s biennial “Song and Script” symposium on music and poetry.
Education
Ph.D. English / Rhetoric and Composition (2000)
University of Nevada, Reno
Dissertation Title: “The Rhetoric of Poetic Witness”
Abstract: This study explores ethical appeals embedded in poetry of witness. These necessary appeals help readers trust poems’ author/speakers, but often conflict with other conventions of both poetry and witness. Frequently, the reader of poetic witness is challenged to recognize and balance contradictory text strategies. Research for the dissertation includes: Literature of Witness; Post-Structuralist Literary Theory; Rhetorical Studies of Literature; Reader Response Theory; Narrative Theory in Literature and Psychology; Eyewitness Studies in Psychology.
M.A. English / Creative Writing (1994)
University of North Dakota
Thesis Title: “Light Sketches: Poems”
This collection explores family relationships and coming-of-age themes. Poems from the thesis were awarded the Academy of American Poets’ Thomas McGrath Award. In 2000, poems from this manuscript were included in a manuscript that earned the Nevada Arts Council Poetry Fellowship. Poems from the collection earned publication in Midwest Poetry Review, The Red Wheelbarrow, and the anthology of North Dakota poetry, Prairie Volcano.
B.A. English (1992)
University of North Dakota
Teaching Experience
Viterbo University 2000-present: Assistant Professor of English
English 001: Pre-College English
English 103: Composition and the Elements of Argument
English 104: Composition and Introduction to Literature
English 204: Environmental Literature
English 205: Service Learning
English 207: The Short Story
English 211: Introduction to Creative Writing
English 310: Advanced Composition
English 311: Reading and Writing the Short Story
English 312: Reading and Writing Contemporary Poetry
English 401: Tutoring College Writing
English 455: Colloquium: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
English 471: Introduction to the Field of Composition and Rhetoric
English 481: Senior Thesis
University of Nevada, Reno: 1995-2000: Graduate Teaching Fellow
English 101: Composition I
English 102: Composition II
Western Traditions (team-taught, interdisciplinary Humanities sequence) 201: Foundations
of Western Culture, 202: The ModernWorld, and 203: The American Experience.
English 281: Introduction to Language and Literacy
English 305: Creative Writing and Reading for Craft
English 371: Literature and Ethnicity
University of North Dakota: 1993-94: Graduate Teaching Assistant
English 101 and 102: First-year Composition
Book Publications and Manuscripts
Stobb, William. Nervous Systems (poems) winner of National Poetry Series award
for 2006. Forthcoming in 2007 from Penguin Books.
Stobb, William. For Better Night Vision: Poems. Reno: Black Rock, 2001.
Published Poetry
Stobb, William. “I Put Up a Trellis.” Forthcoming in Interim.
_____. “A History of Interruption.” Forthcoming in nthposition.
_____. “Poem for an American Barbecue.” Forthcoming in Cricket Online Review.
_____. “Crow” and “Poem for Detroit.” Forthcoming in MiPOesias.
_____. “Inside +/- Outside,” and “The Subway Portraits.” Colorado Review 32.2
(Fall/Winter 2005).
_____. “Dissayda Worl.” American Poetry Review 34.3 (June 2005): 36.
_____. “Circa Oh Two,” “For Real June,” and “October with Zoloft Trial Packet.”
Three Candles. <http://www.threecandles.org/archive/wstobb.html>
_____. “For Hearing and Not Hearing.” Wisconsin Academy Review 51.1 (Winter
2005): 38.
_____. “Poem in the Food Chain” Colorado Review 31.2 (Summer 2004): 107.
_____. “Nervous Systems,” “Semi-automatic” and “Other Greens. Reductions.” Atenea
24.1 (June 2004): 177-186.
_____. “Anti-Matter Daydream” and “Life of the Bat Child.” Refractory 3 (2003).
www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/journalissues/vol3/antimatter.htm.
_____. “Fugue.” Touchstone 67 (2003): 16.
_____. “Poem with Too Many Worlds,” “The Conclusive Gesture Becomes Visible,”
and “Sin Ten Million.” donga. donga.co.za (fall 2002).
_____. “Failed Sculpture” and “Other Exposure.” Interim 20.2 (2002): 120-121.
_____. “Rhenish” and “Time is Going Down in Me.” Denver Quarterly 37.1 (Spring
2002): 46-49.
_____. “Tower with Beach or Basin.” Colorado Review 29.1 (Spring 2002): 135.
_____. “At the Afterlife Hotel.” American Literary Review 12.2 (Fall 2001): 93.
_____. “Qualities or Characteristics of.” PIFmagazine.com. October 2001.
_____. “The Fourth Word is Edenic.” Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River
Valley 1.1 (Winter 2000): 62.
_____. “Pose.” Neon (Winter 2000-2001): 11.
_____. “Midland Survey.” Midwest Poetry Review 21.3 (July 2000): 33.
_____. “The Cellist.” Kiosk 11/12 (1998/1999): 140.
_____. “An Absurd Film.” Southwestern American Literature 24.1 (1998): 140.
_____. “Acts” and “Who Do Not Touch Each Other.” High Desert Review 2 (1997): 67-
68.
_____. “Five Years after Watching the Perseids with a Friend.” Published as first prize
winner, National Poetry Broadside Competition. Reno: The Black Rock Press,
1996.
_____. “Five Years after Watching the Perseids with a Friend.” North Dakota Quarterly
(Spring 1996): 137.
_____. “Night Drive.” Brushfire 15 (1996): 13-18.
_____. “Viewing the AIDS Quilt.” North Country Broadsides (Spring 1995): 1.
_____. “Packages for Ms. Hoff” and “Drama.” The Red Wheelbarrow 4.2 (March 1995):
5-7.
_____. “Speculations,” “With Kari’s Family at Lake of the Woods,” and “Night at the
West Edge of Grand Forks, North Dakota” (poems). Prairie Volcano: an
Anthology of North Dakota Writing. Meek, Martha and Jay Meek, eds.
Moorhead: Dacotah Territory Press/St. Ives Press, 1995: 246-248.
Essays Published or Accepted for Publication
Stobb, William. “New National Anthems: On Recent Books by Claudia Keelan and
Tony Hoagland.” Denver Quarterly 40.1 (Fall 2005): 136-145.
Stobb, William, John Lehman, Shoshauna Schey, Alison Townsend, and Cathryn Cofell.
“Do You Swear to Tell the Truth: A Roundtable.” Rosebud 29 (April 2004): 121-
129.
Stobb, William. “Permission to Read.” Rev. of The Grand Permission: New Writings on
Poetics and Motherhood, eds. Hillman, Brenda, and Patricia Dientsfrey. ebr:
postfeminism. <www.electronicbookreview.com>
_____. “Donald Revell.” Forthcoming in Dictionary of Literary Biography.
_____. “Brenda Hillman.” Forthcoming in Dictionary of Literary Biography.
_____. “Keeping ‘The Winter Count’: Thomas McGrath’s Rhetoric of Memory.”
Nevada Rhetoric Review. 1.1 (1998): 28-35.
Stobb, William and John Eliason. “Collaborative Report from an Interactive Session at
the National Writing Center Association Conference.” Writing Lab Newsletter.
23.3 (November, 1998): 9-11.
Stobb, William. Rev. of Pretty Happy! (Prose Poems by Peter Johnson. Fredonia:
White Pine, 1997). North Dakota Quarterly. 65.2 (1998): 163-66.
_____. “The Wild Into the Word: an Interview with Rick Bass.” Interdisciplinary
Studies in Literature and Environment 5.2 (1998): 97-105.
Stobb, William and Steve Adkison. Review of Sound and Form in Modern Poetry
(Harvey Gross and Robert McDowell, eds. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997).
Jeffers Studies 1.2 (Spring 1997): 13-17.
_____. “A Visit with Robert Pinsky.” Touchstone 21.2 (December, 1997): 1-4.
Presentations
Stobb, William. “‘A Wholly Unnatural Inclusiveness:’ Ethics and Form in the Poetry of
Brenda Hillman and Claudia Keelan.” The Annual Conference of the Midwest
Modern Language Association. 11/4-11/7, 2004. St. Louis, Missouri.
_____. “Trajectory and Trace: Poetry Approaches Knowing.” Faculty Symposium,
Viterbo University. August 24, 2004.
_____. “Transformation and Truth: the Poet/Reader Dynamic in First Person.”
Wisconsin Humanities Council Book Festival. Madison, WI. October, 2003.
_____. Featured reader at reception for Interim 20, “For the Future: 14 New Poets.”
University of Nevada, Las Vegas. May 2002.
_____. “River poems.” Viterbo University Humanities Symposium. February, 2002.
_____. For Better Night Vision: Poems. Hilliard Fellowship Reading. University of
Nevada, Reno. March 2001.
_____. For Better Night Vision: Poems. Reading as Nevada Arts Council Poetry Fellow.
Reno, Nevada. February 2000.
_____. “In Geological Time: Up Close and Personal with Western Temporality.” Annual
Conference of the Western Literature Association, October 1999.
Stobb, William, Gioia Woods and Robert Blesse. “Editing the Wasteland: an Inside
Look at a Regional Anthology.” Annual Conference of the Western Literature
Association, October 1999.
Stobb, William and John Eliason. “Question Asking Strategies for the WAC-Based
Writing Center Tutor.” Annual Conference of the National Writing Center
Association, September 1997.
Stobb, William. “Film into Poem: an Artistic Confrontation with the Black Rock
Desert.” Great Basin Narratives panel at the bi-annual conference of the
Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, June, 1997.
_____. “Transcending the Context-Specific: Critical Vocabulary in the Composition
Classroom.” Southwest Regional Conference of the National Council of Teachers
of English, October 1996.
_____. “Keeping ‘The Winter Count’: Thomas McGrath’s Rhetoric of Memory.”
National Poetry Foundation Conference on American Poetry of the 1950s, June
1996.
Grants, Fellowships, and Awards
2006 National Poetry Series Award winner
Scholarship award winner for Summer Literary Seminars, St. Petersburg. Russia.
2000-2004 Financial Support for Viterbo Visiting Writers Series, including: Donald
Revell, Brenda Hillman, Elizabeth Oness, Ken McCullough, Jim Armstrong, U Sam Oeur, Beth Ann Fennelly, Gary Gildner, Claudia Keelan, Ken Waldman, and Emilio DeGrazia.
2001 Hilliard Endowment Fellowship for Poetry, University of Nevada, Reno.
2000-2001 Nevada Arts Council Poetry Fellowship.
1996-2000 Grants for “Western Writers Interview Series:” Nevada Arts Council;
Nevada Humanities Committee; University of Nevada Graduate Student
Association; Friends of the University of Nevada Library; Peter Chase and
Renate Newman, Attorneys at Law; Great Basin Book Festival; and
Barnes & Noble.
1998 First Prize, Clarita Felhoelter Fellowship in Poetry.
1996 Nomination for 22nd Annual Pushcart Prize for poem “Five Years after
Watching the Perseids with a Friend.”
First Prize, Black Rock Press National Poetry Broadside Contest.
1994 First Prize, Academy of American Poets Thomas McGrath Award.
Academic and Community Service
2005-2006 Co-director of Pump House Regional Arts Center’s Visiting Writers Series.
2005 Co-director: Viterbo University’s “Song and Script: A Celebration of
Music and Poetry.” April 9-12, 2005.
Judge for Wisconsin Academy Review Poetry Conference.
2004 Wisconsin Humanities Council Poetry Committee for the Wisconsin Book
Festival.
2004 Volunteer poet-in-the-schools, Hamilton Elementary School, La Crosse,
Wisconsin (based on the work of poet and teacher, Kenneth Koch).
2003 Elected Representative to the Viterbo Board of Trustees for Student
Development and Enrollment.
2002 Elected to Viterbo University Faculty Board of Review.
2001-present Appointed to Viterbo Faculty Concerns Committee.
2001-present Viterbo Humanities Symposium organizational committee.
2000-present Faculty advisor for Touchstone: Viterbo art and literature journal.
2000-present Chair: Writing Across the Curriculum.
2001-present Co-chair: English Department Writing Committee: reviews writing
program, including self-studies, curriculum development, and
coordination of peer tutoring program.
2001 Attended national Writing Across the Curriculum Conference.
2001 Coordinated campus visit to Viterbo by Writing Across the Curriculum
scholar, Dr. Mark Waldo.
1998-99 Committee Member, Nevada Humanities Council Steering Committee for
Great Basin Book Festival.
Committee Member, English Department Committee on student/faculty
colloquia, University of Nevada, Reno.
Committee Member, Nevada Authors Hall of Fame Committee, University
of Nevada, Reno.
Editorial Assistant, Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities, University
of Nevada, Reno.
Volunteer, Tahoe Forest Day. Lake Tahoe, California.
1997-98 Mentor for new graduate teaching fellows, CORE Writing Program, University of Nevada, Reno.
Organizer “Con/fusion: Writers Reading Writing,” three week reading
series at “I, Claudius,” Reno, NV.
1996-97 Committee Member, Washoe County K-16 Council on Language Arts Education, assessment subcommittee.