Dr. Philip Edward Phillips
Professor of English and Associate Dean, University Honors College
Monday, 8:00 AM-3:00 PM, and Tuesday-Friday, 8:00 AM-4:30 PM, by appointment
Departments / Programs
Degree Information
- PHD, Vanderbilt University (1996)
- MA, Vanderbilt University (1992)
- BA, Belmont University (1990)
Areas of Expertise
Poe and antebellum American literature
19th- and 20th-century American poetry
Early Modern British literature including Milton
Classical and early European literature
Bibliography and research methods
Honors education
Biography
Dr. Philip Edward Phillips is associate dean of the University Honors College and professor of English. He received his B.A. in English, with minors in Latin and philosophy, at Belmont University in 1990, his M.A. in English at Vanderbilt University in 1992, and his Ph.D. in English at Vanderbilt University in 1996. He has served on the faculty at Middle Tennessee State University since 1999.
He is the recipient of the MTSU Distinguished Research Award for 2007-2008, 2014-2015, a...
Read More »Dr. Philip Edward Phillips is associate dean of the University Honors College and professor of English. He received his B.A. in English, with minors in Latin and philosophy, at Belmont University in 1990, his M.A. in English at Vanderbilt University in 1992, and his Ph.D. in English at Vanderbilt University in 1996. He has served on the faculty at Middle Tennessee State University since 1999.
He is the recipient of the MTSU Distinguished Research Award for 2007-2008, 2014-2015, and 2020-2021, a 2008-2009 Boston Athenæum Mary Catherine Mooney Research Fellowship, and a 2010-2012 W. T. Bandy Fellowship at the Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has also held research fellowships at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He is the recipient of the Poe Studies Association's J. Lasley Dameron Award for his edited collection, Poe and Place, published in 2018 by Palgrave Macmillan in its Geocritical and Spatial Literary Studies Series.
Dr. Phillips is president-elect of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. He served two terms previously on Phi Kappa Phi's national Board of Directors and as chair of its Strategic Planning Taskforce. At MTSU, he is the president of Chapter 246 of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and treasurer of the MTSU Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa.
Dr. Phillips is president of the Poe Studies Association and former member of the editorial board of The Edgar Allan Poe Review. He was the program chair of the International Poe and Hawthorne Conference in Kyoto (2018) and the 5th International Edgar Allan Poe Conference in Boston (2022), and he is a co-organizer of the International Poe and Hawthorne Conference in Paris (2025).
He is a life member of the Milton Society of America, a member of the Robert Frost Society, and the secretary of the International Boethius Society. He served for over fifteen years as co-editor of the multidisciplinary journal, Carmina Philosophiae, on Boethius, his age, and his influence. He is currently the faculty advisor to Scientia et Humanitas: A Journal of Student Research published by the MTSU Honors College.
Publications
BOOKS
Poe Spaces: Within and Beyond the Spatial Turn (edited collection of essays under contract with Palgrave Macmillan)
Remaking Boethius: The English Language Translation Tradition of The Consolation of Philosophy. Co-edited with Brian Donaghey, Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Paul E. Szarmach. Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS/Brepols, 2019.
Poe and Place. Edited by Philip Edward Phillips. Geocritical and Spatial Literary Studies Series...
Read More »BOOKS
Poe Spaces: Within and Beyond the Spatial Turn (edited collection of essays under contract with Palgrave Macmillan)
Remaking Boethius: The English Language Translation Tradition of The Consolation of Philosophy. Co-edited with Brian Donaghey, Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Paul E. Szarmach. Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS/Brepols, 2019.
Poe and Place. Edited by Philip Edward Phillips. Geocritical and Spatial Literary Studies Series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Vernacular Traditions of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae. Co-edited with Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. Research in Medieval Culture. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016.
Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana. Edited by Philip Edward Phillips. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages. Co-edited with Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition 30. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2012.
The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I. Co-edited with Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 366. Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS, 2009.
New Directions in Boethian Studies. Co-edited with Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. Studies in Medieval Culture XLV. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007.
John Milton's Epic Invocations: Converting the Muse. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
ARTICLES
“‘Versed in Country Things’: Animals in the Poetry of Robert Frost.” Animals in Classic American Poetry: How Natural History Inspired Great Verse. Edited by John Cullen Gruesser. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, forthcoming in 2025.
“‘At the same time more or less than a man’: The Ourang-Outang in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’” Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction. Edited by John Cullen Gruesser. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2022. 31-56.
“Poe’s Poetry Anthologized.” Anthologizing Poe: Editions, Translations, and (Trans)National Canons. Edited by Emron Esplin and Margarida Vale de Gato. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2020. 221-245.
"Poe the Magazinist." The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 479-498. Online Publication Date: Jul 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190641870.013.28.
"Poe, Paris, and 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'" (co-authored with George Poe). Poe and Place. Geocritical and Spatial Series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 289-319.
"The American Stage." Edgar Allan Poe in Context. Edited by Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 118-128.
"Adaptations of Dante's Commedia in Popular American Fiction and Film." Medieval and Early Modern English Studies17.2 (2009): 197-212.
"Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius: A Chronology and Selected Annotated Bibliography." A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages. Ed. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip Edward Phillips. Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition 30. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2012. 551-589.
"Boethius, le Quadrivium, et la Consolation de la Philosophie." Colloquia Aquitana II—Boèce: l'homme, le philosophe, le scientifique, son oevre et son rayonnement. Ed. Illo Humphrey. Paris: Éditions Le Manuscrit, 2009. 183-201.
“Boethius, the Prisoner, and The Consolation of Philosophy.” Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana. Edited by Philip Edward Phillips. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 11-33.
"Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae 3 m 9 and the Classical Hymn." Recent Trends in Medieval English Language and Literature in Honour of Young-Bae Park. Ed. Jacek Fisiak and Hye-kyung Kang. Seoul: Thaehaksa, 2005. 309-320.
"Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae and the Lamentatio / Consolatio Tradition," Medieval English Studies 9.2 (2001): 5-27.
"Boethian 'Happiness' in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man, Epistle IV," in Vitality of Literature. Ed. An Sonjae. Seoul: Han-Ul Academy, 2002. 389-402.
"Elegy." The Milton Encyclopedia. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. 108.
“Engagement Ring: Elmira Royster Shelton.” Edgar Allan Poe in 20 Objects from the Susan Jaffe Tane Collection. Edited by Gabrielle Dean and Richard Kopley. Baltimore: The Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University, 2016. 38-43.
"The English Consolation of Philosophy: Translation and Reception." Carmina Philosophiae 17 (2008): 97-126.
“The English Translation Tradition of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae with a Checklist of Translations.” Vernacular Traditions of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae. Edited by Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip Edward Phillips. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016. 221-249.
"Hymn." The Milton Encyclopedia. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. 158-159.
"King Alfred the Great and the Victorian Translations of his Anglo-Saxon Boethius." Global Perspectives on Medieval English Literature, Language, and Culture. Edited by Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Richard Scott Nokes. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007. 155-173.
"King Arthur." The Milton Encyclopedia. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. 201.
"Lady Philosophy's Therapeutic Method: The 'Gentler' and the 'Stronger' Remedies in Boethius's De Consolatione Philsophiae," Medieval English
Studies 10.2 (2002): 5-26.
"Muses." The Milton Encyclopedia. Ed. Thomas N. Corns. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. 250.
"Poe's 1845 Boston Lyceum Appearance Reconsidered." Deciphering Poe: Subtexts, Contexts, Subversive Meanings. Ed. Alexandra Urakova. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press/Roman & Littlefield, 2013. 41-52.
"Psychoanalytical and Phenomenological Approaches to 'The Fall of the House of Usher. '" Psi Sigma Journal 3 (Spring 1990):94-102.
“Rejecting the Pagan Gods: Abraham Cowley and the Christian Muse.” John Milton’s Epic Invocations: Converting the Muse. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. 17-44. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Vol. 90. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 17 Dec. 2015. URL: https://ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420084992&v=2.1&u=tel_middleten&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=0b19c1ddd2e9659165ab91a951421052
"Robert Browning's Poetry of Loss: 'Prospice' and 'To Edward FitzGerald,'" Sun Yat-sen Journal of Humanities 22 (Summer 2006): 135-146.
"Teaching Poe's 'The Raven' and 'Annabel Lee' as Elegies." Approaches to Teaching Poe's Prose and Poetry. Ed. Jeffrey Weinstock and Tony Magistrale. New York: MLA Publications, 2008. 76-80.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
"Robert Frost." Oxford Bibliographies Online. American Literature Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, under submission.
“Teaching Boethius: A Selective Bibliography,” Carmina Philosophiae: Journal of the International Boethius Society 29 (2020): 95-106, published in Spring 2024.
"Boethius." Oxford Online Bibliographies. Medieval Studies Series. Ed. Paul E. Szarmach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Last Modified: March 30, 2017; DOI 10.1093/OBO/978019536584-0222.
“Boethius: A Selected Bibliography for Students,” bibliography of primary and secondary sources, last updated on December 2, 2014; available on the official International Boethius Society website at http://boethius.blogspot.com/p/bibliography.html.
"Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius: A Chronology and Selected Annotated Bibliography." A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages. Ed. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip Edward Phillips. Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition 30. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2012. 551-589.
"International Poe Bibliography: 1992-1993." (Contributor, with Scott Peeples). Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism 27 (1994): 5-27.
REVIEWS
Review of In Poe’s Wake: Travels in the Graphic and the Atmospheric by Jonathan Elmer. Choice Connect, Vol. 62, No. 5 (January 2025).
Review of Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Robert Morgan, Choice Connect, Vol. 61, No. 11 (July 2024).
Review of Prophets, Publicists, and Parasites: Antebellum Print Culture and the Rise of the Critic by Adam Gordon. The Edgar Allan Poe Review 24:2 (Fall 2023): 253-258.
Review of Believing in Dante: Truth in Fiction by Alison Cornish. Choice Connect, Vol. 61, No. 4 (December 2023).
Review of Dante, Artist of Gesture by Heather Web. Choice, Vol. 61, Issue 3 (November 2023).
Review of Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times by Stephen B. Dobranski. Choice Connect, Vol. 60, No. 12 (August 2023).
Review of Making Milton: Print, Authorship, Afterlives, edited by Emma Depledge, John S. Garrison, and Marissa Nicosia. Choice Connect, Vol. 59, No. 10 (June 2022).
Review of The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City by Scott Peeples. Photographs by Michelle van Parys. Choice Connect, Vol. 59, No. 1 (September 2021).
Review of Milton and the New Scientific Age: Poetry, Science, Fiction by Catherine Gimelli Martin. Choice, Vol. 57, No. 5 (January 2020)
Review of Milton and the Making of Paradise Lost by William Poole. Choice, Vol. 55, No. 11 (July 2018).
Review of The Poet Edgar Allan Poe: Alien Angel by Jerome McGann. Poe Studies 48 (2015): 94–96.
Review of Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, translated by Scott Goins and Barbara H. Wyman. Carmina Philosophiae: Journal of the International Boethius Society 23 (2014): 103-107.
Review of Race, Gender and Empire in American Detective Fiction by John Cullen Gruesser. The Edgar Allan Poe Review (Spring 2014): 106-109.
Review of Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe by Harry Lee Poe. Renewing Minds: A Journal of Christian Thought 3 (2013): 125-128.
Review of Reading Fiction in Antebellum America: Informed Response and Reception Histories, 1820-1865 by James L. Machor for Poe Studies 44 (2011): 101-105.
Review of Poe in His Own Time, A Biographical Chronicle of his Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates by Benjamin F. Fisher. The Edgar Allan Poe Review 12.2 (Fall 2011): 101-104.
“Reconsidering Poe’s Poetry and its Theatrical Origins: A Review of Stagefright, or the Broken Hearts of Edgar Allan Poe.” The Edgar Allan Poe Review 12.1 (Spring 2011): 125-127.
Review of Edgar Allan Poe by Kevin J. Hayes. The Edgar Allan Poe Review 12.1 (Spring 2011): 114-121.
Review of A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, edited by Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone. Carmina Philosophiae 15 (2006): 111-113.
“Clarembald of Arras and his Glosses on Boethius’s De Trinitate and De Hebdomadibus.” Carmina Philosophiae 14 (2005): 159-166.
Review of Speaking Grief in English Literary Culture: Shakespeare to Milton, edited by Margo Swiss and David A. Kent. Early Modern Literary Studies 10.3 (January, 2005): 13.1-8.
Review of Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation by Theresa A. Goddu, The Edgar Allan Poe Review 1.1 (Spring 2000): 37-39.
Review of Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400-1400 by Marcia L. Colish. Carmina Philosophiae 7 (1998): 108-111.
Review of Milton, the Metaphysicals, and Romanticism, edited by Lisa Low and Anthony John Harding. The Byron Journal 25 (1997).
Review of Origin and Authority in Seventeenth-Century England: Bacon, Milton, Butler by Alvin Snider. Early Modern Literary Studies 1.2 (1995): 9.1-7.
Review of Job, Boethius, and Epic Truth by Ann W. Astell. Carmina Philosophiae 3 (1994): 83-86.
Presentations
INVITED LECTURES
Siena Lecture: "Boethius, Christianity, and Consolation," Aquinas College, Nashville, TN, September 28, 2023.
Siena Lecture: "Dante among the Poets," Aquinas College, Nashville, TN, February 24, 2022.
"Boethius and his Shaping of the Medieval Mind," Keynote Address, 20th Christianity in the Academy Conference, Union University, Memphis Campus, March 1, 2019.
“Boethius Behind Bars: The Value of the Liberal Arts Beyond the ...
Read More »INVITED LECTURES
Siena Lecture: "Boethius, Christianity, and Consolation," Aquinas College, Nashville, TN, September 28, 2023.
Siena Lecture: "Dante among the Poets," Aquinas College, Nashville, TN, February 24, 2022.
"Boethius and his Shaping of the Medieval Mind," Keynote Address, 20th Christianity in the Academy Conference, Union University, Memphis Campus, March 1, 2019.
“Boethius Behind Bars: The Value of the Liberal Arts Beyond the Academy,” invited lecture sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, the Department of English, Greek and Roman Studies, Philosophy, the Spence Wilson Chair for the Humanities, and Religious Studies, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, October 5, 2016.
"Boethius, the Summum Bonum, and The Consolation of Philosophy," Keynote Address, 45th Annual Conference of the Rocky Mountain Medieval & Renaissance Association, Denver, CO, April 12, 2013.
"Poe and Boston," Poe Foundation of Boston Inaugural Annual Lecture, Boston Public Library, Boston, MA, January 19, 2013.
"Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy and Its Influence in the Middle Ages," University of New Mexico, College of Arts and Sciences, Institute of Medieval Studies, Twenty-Seventh Spring Lecture Series: Medieval Masterpieces, April 17, 2012.
"The Liberating Voice of Lady Philosophy: The Function of Poetry in Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy," Belmont University Convocation Series, Nashville, TN, January 25, 2012.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
“Poe Spaces, Places, and Spheres of Influence” (moderator and presenter), Third International Congress: Poe and the Pleasures of Art, Edgar Allan Poe Spanish Association (EAPSA), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, October 6, 2023.
"Versed in Country Things: (Mis)reading Animals in Animals and Nature in the Poetry of Robert Frost," 34th Annual Annual Conference on American Literature, Boston, MA, May 27, 2023.
"Returning Home: Poe, Boston, and the Legacy of the American Stage," 5th International Edgar Allan Poe Conference, Omni Parker House Hotel, Boston, MA, April 8, 2022.
“‘At the same time more and less than a man’: The Ourang-Outang, Poe, and ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’” at the 30th Annual Conference on American Literature, Boston, MA, May 23, 2019.
“Poe the Magazinist,” International Poe and Hawthorne Conference, Kyoto Garden Palace Hotel, Kyoto, Japan, June 23, 2018.
“Poe’s Poetry Anthologized,” International Poe and Hawthorne Conference, Kyoto Garden Palace Hotel, Kyoto, Japan, June 24, 2018.
“Resources for the Study of Poe and Baudelaire at the W.T. Bandy Center,” The Poe Studies Association’s Fourth International Edgar Allan Poe Conference, New York, NY, February 28, 2015.
“Poe in France: Baudelaire and Beyond,” SymPOEsium on PLACE, University Honors College, Middle Tennessee State University, February 19, 2015."Yankee Neal and Edgar Poe: A Literary Friendship," Positively Poe Conference, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, June 25, 2013.
"Baudelaire's Poe in Europe," Conversazioni in Italia: Emerson, Hawthorne, and Poe," La Pietra International Conference and Events Center, Florence, Italy, June June 9, 2012.
"Poe and Boston: The 1845 Boston Lyceum Incident Reconsidered," The Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference: The Bicentennial," Philadelphia, PA, October 11, 2009.
"Alfred, Boethius, and the Victorian Imagination." 124th Annual MLA Convention, San Francisco, CA, December 27, 2008
"The English Consolation of Philosophy: Translation and Reception," Second Annual Conference on Christian Philosophy: Boethius, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, OH, April 14, 2007.
"Translating and Remaking Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy into English from the 9 th to the 21 st Centuries," Colloquia Aquitana-II, "Boéce (Rome, ca. 480-Pavie, ca. 524): l'homme, le philosophe, le scientifique, son oevre et son rayonnement," Le Musée Conservatoire du Parchemin et de l'Enluminure, Duras, France, August 4, 2006.
"Boece, le Quadrivium , et la Consolation de la Philosophie," Colloquia Aquitana-II, "Boéce (Rome, ca. 480-Pavie, ca. 524): l'homme, le philosophe, le scientifique, son oevre et son rayonnement," Le Musée Conservatoire du Parchemin et de l'Enluminure, Duras, France, August 3, 2006.
"Victorian Translations of King Alfred's Boethius," Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea International Conference, Seoul National University, October 7, 2005.
"Boethius, the Quadrivium, and the Order of the Universe," 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 6, 2005.
"Vernacular Translations of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae: The English Consolatio," 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 2004.
"Milton's History of Britain and the Rejection of Historical Epic," Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea, 6th International Conference, Korea University, Seoul, November 22, 2003.
"Lady Philosophy's Therapeutic Method: The 'Gentler' and 'Stronger' Remedies in Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae," Medieval English Studies Association of Korea International Conference, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, November 23, 2002.
"Lady Philosophy, Satirist or Consoler?," 37 th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 2002.
"Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae and the Lamentatio/Consolatio Tradition," Medieval English Studies Association of Korea International Conference, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, November 17, 2001.
"Boethius in Eighteenth-Century British Literature," 36 th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 2001.
"From Clio to Urania: Epic Invocations in The History of Britain," Conference on John Milton, Middle Tennessee State University, October 24, 1997.
"Boethian 'Happiness' in Pope's Essay on Man, Epistle IV," 31 st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 10, 1996.
"'Ever-During Dark Surrounds Me': The Reversal of Miltonic Invocations in Pope's Dunciad," South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of New Orleans, February 24, 1996.
"'The Inspired Gift of God': The Generic Genius of Milton's Hymn to Holy Light," Conference on John Milton, Middle Tennessee State University, October 27, 1995.
"Homer, Cleanthes, Boethius, and the Classical Hymn," 29 th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 6, 1994.
"'The Slave of Compassion": Female Complicity in Wollstonecraft's Mary, A Fiction," South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, Rice University, February 20, 1994.
"Dream Vision as Consolatio in Boethius and the Pearl-Poet," 28 th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 8, 1993.
"Catullus's Programmatic Tablets," 23rd Committee for the Advancement of Early Studies Conference, Ball State University, November 7, 1992.
Awards
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2024
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2023
MTSU Foundation Distinguished Research Award, 2021
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2021
J. Lasley Dameron Award for Distinguished Edited Collection of Poe Scholarship (Poe and Place), Poe Studies Association, 2018
MTSU...
Read More »Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2024
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2023
MTSU Foundation Distinguished Research Award, 2021
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2021
J. Lasley Dameron Award for Distinguished Edited Collection of Poe Scholarship (Poe and Place), Poe Studies Association, 2018
MTSU Foundation Distinguished Research Award, 2015
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2015
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2014
MTSU Foundation Distinguished Research Award, 2008
Phi Kappa Phi Influential Faculty Award, Middle Tennessee State University Chapter, 2007
Research / Scholarly Activity
Dr. Phillips's research interests include Edgar Allan Poe and antebellum American literature, the poetry of Robert Frost, John Milton and the epic tradition, and early European literature, including Vergil, Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Dante.
Some of his major publications include Remaking Boethius: The English Transation: The English Language Translation Tradition of The Consolation of Philosophy (Brepols, 2019), Poe and Place (Palgrave, 2018),&nbs...
Read More »Dr. Phillips's research interests include Edgar Allan Poe and antebellum American literature, the poetry of Robert Frost, John Milton and the epic tradition, and early European literature, including Vergil, Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Dante.
Some of his major publications include Remaking Boethius: The English Transation: The English Language Translation Tradition of The Consolation of Philosophy (Brepols, 2019), Poe and Place (Palgrave, 2018), Vernacular Traditions of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae (MIP, 2016), Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana (Palgrave, 2014), A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2012),The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I (MIP, 2009), New Directions in Boethian Studies (MIP, 2007), and John Milton's Epic Invocations: Converting the Muse (Lang, 2000).
Dr. Phillips has published chapters/essays in Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction (Texas A&M UP,2022), Anthologizing Poe: Editions, Translations, and (Trans)National Canons (Lehigh UP, 2020), The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (2019), Oxford Medieval Bibliographies (2017), Deciphering Poe (Lehigh UP, 2013), Edgar Allan Poe in Context (Cambridge UP, 2012),The Milton Encyclopedia (Yale UP, 2012), Approaches to Teaching Poe's Prose and Poetry (MLA, 2008), and Global Perspectives on Medieval Literature and Culture (MIP, 2007), as well as numerous articles and book reviews in peer-reviewed academic journals.
Creative Activity
"To R. P. W., 1905-1989" (poem). The Vanderbilt Review XII (1996).
"Upon a Hill" (poem). The Vanderbilt Review XII (1996).
In the Media
“MTSU’s Phillips named president-elect of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi,” by Randy Weiler. MTSU News (6 September 2024): https://mtsunews.com/mtsu-associate-dean-phi-kappa-phi-president-elect/.
“MTSU professor elected to Phi Kappa Phi honor society national board of directors,” by Gina Logue. MTSU News (17 A...
Read More »“MTSU’s Phillips named president-elect of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi,” by Randy Weiler. MTSU News (6 September 2024): https://mtsunews.com/mtsu-associate-dean-phi-kappa-phi-president-elect/.
“MTSU professor elected to Phi Kappa Phi honor society national board of directors,” by Gina Logue. MTSU News (17 August 2022): https://mtsunews.com/phillips-phi-kappa-phi-national-board/
“MTSU Honors Lecture students receive ‘rare’ opportunity with Remnant Trust books on loan,” by Randy Weiler. MTSU News (26 January 2021): https://mtsunews.com/remnant-trust-rare-books-benefit-honors-students/
"Athenæum Author: Dr. Philip E. Phillips," Interview by Mary Warnement: https://www.bostonathenaeum.org/library/book-recommendations/athenaeum-authors/dr-philip-e-phillips
"Phillips elected to Phi Kappa Phi Board of Directors," by Gina Logue: https://mtsunews.com/phillips-phi-kappa-phi-board-2018/
"Coming Home: An MTSU Professor Plays a Critical Role in the City of Boston's Recognition of Native Son Edgar Allan Poe," by Drew Ruble: https://mtsunews.com/coming-home/
Special Projects
Co-organizer of the 2025 International Poe and Hawthorne Conference, Paris, France
Program chair of the 2022 International Edgar Allan Poe Conference in Boston, Massachusetts
Program chair of the 2018 International Poe and Hawthorne Conference in Kyoto, Japan
Founder and former director of Great Books in Middle Tennessee Prisons, Nashville, Tennessee
Courses
Introduction to Graduate Studies: Bibliography and Research Methods
Major American Writers: Edgar Allan Poe
Major American Writers: Robert Frost and His Contemporaries
Studies in Milton
Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar: Honors in Italy
Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar: Honors in Thailand
Honors Lecture Series