Frank Shuffelton (died March 4, 2010) was an American scholar of American literature, who taught at the University of Rochester from 1969 to his retirement in 2007. His expertise was the American Enlightenment; he published a monograph on Thomas Hooker and bibliographical books on Thomas Jefferson, whose Notes on the State of Virginia he edited.

Biography

Shuffelton received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and did his doctorate at Stanford University. He spent his entire academic career at the University of Rochester, beginning in 1969, teaching American literature of the 17th through 19th centuries. He retired in 2007, as an emeritus. Shuffelton was chair of Rochester's English Department (2003-2007) and directed its composition program (1997-2000). He was on the editorial boards of Early American Literature and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. In 2006, the Modern Language Association honored him as Distinguished Scholar of Early American Literature.[1]

His first published book (1977) was on Thomas Hooker (a "perceptive and sympathetic biography",[2] and a "standard study"[3]), the founder of the Connecticut Colony; subsequent book publications were on Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and other transcendentalists. Jefferson was one of his research interests, and besides many articles on his life and thought, he published two bibliographies of Jefferson, in 1983 and 1992. His intensive study of Jefferson led him to new insights on the material, and made him "an intellectual historian of discourse, gender, and ethnicity". In the 1990s, a series of "landmark articles" made him "a central critical voice in retheorizing early American letters".[3] He was the editor for the Penguin edition of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, edited the letters of John and Abigail Adams for Penguin, and edited the Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson (2008).[1] He also studied the issue of race in early American history and literature, and the collection A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America (1992), which he edited, is cited by scholars as "excellent".[4]

Shuffelton was married to Jane W. Shuffelton, for 46 years, and was survived by her and two children when he died, after a long illness (from cancer[5]) on March 4, 2010, at age 69.[1] An In Memoriam published in Early American Literature noted his warmth and collegiality, and his support for young scholars getting started in the field.[5]

Publications

Books and monographs

Edited books and collections

Articles

References

  1. ^ a b c "Professor Emeritus of English Frank Shuffelton Dies at 69". University of Rochester. March 9, 2010. Retrieved October 15, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Maclear, J. F. (1978). "Reviewed Work(s): Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647 by Frank Shuffelton; Thomas Hooker: Writings in England and Holland, 1626-1633 by George H. Williams, Norman Pettit, Winfried Herget, Sargent Bush". The William and Mary Quarterly. 35 (4): 761–763.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "MLA Distinguished Scholar of Early American Literature, 2006, Frank Shuffelton". Early American Literature. 42 (2): 379–380. 2007.
  4. ^ Raphael-Hernandez, Heike; Steen, Shannon, eds. (2006). "Introduction". AfroAsian Encounters: Culture, History, Politics. NYU Press. pp. 1–14. ISBN 9780814776902.
  5. ^ a b M. Gustafson, Sandra (2011). "Editor's Note: In Celebration and In Memorium". Early American Literature. 46 (2): 417–421.
  6. ^ Solberg, Winton U. (1978). "Review: Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647 by Frank Shuffelton". The American Historical Review. 83 (3): 792–93.
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