Remarks by President Shirley Tilghman (5/29/2009)
"At Princeton we stay great by hiring the very best in the world at what they do--a very high bar indeed--and then we raise the bar yet again, by asking our faculty to share their great learning, their formidable command, through fine and devoted teaching. At least that is our ideal. Some professors meet that standard and more. And in Will Howarth we at Princeton truly hit the jackpot. A renowned literary scholar, a legendary teacher, his work here has touched so many lives, and changed many more. Fortunate we are indeed to have faculty members of his quality down the years. So my heartiest congratulations and thanks to Will for his years of service to students and alumni--which in his case have taken place in all manner of settings: in seminar room, lecture hall, or when watching wildlife on the plains of Tanzania!" (CAPA 2009 Award for Excellence in Alumni Education)
From the Princeton Alumni Weekly (6/16/2008)
William Howarth joined the Princeton faculty in 1966 after earning a B.A. at the University of Illinois and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. A popular lecturer and innovative teacher, his courses at Princeton ranged from Shakespeare to Joyce, pre-colonial America to postmodern fiction. As an adviser he supervised 100 dissertations and 256 senior theses. He is an authority on Thoreau, having produced such seminal studies as The Literary Manuscripts of Henry D. Thoreau, The Book of Concord: Thoreau’s Life as a Writer and Walking With Thoreau. From 1972 to 1980 he served as editor in chief of the 25-volume Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, published by Princeton University Press.
His scholarly research falls into three linked phases: American romanticism, literary nonfiction and environmental humanities. He produced essays on autobiography and edited The John McPhee Reader, a book widely used in writing and journalism courses. He wrote more than 90 essays and reviews for major periodicals such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and Smithsonian. For 16 years he traveled and wrote for the National Geographic Society on history, literature, travel and natural science.
Those field experiences led him to teach Princeton’s first courses on literary geography, environmental history, American places, and the relations of race and place. He was the sole humanist to participate in forming the Princeton Environmental Institute, which he served for 16 years as member of its executive committee. As a scholar he became a primary voice in ecocriticism, an interdisciplinary movement that examines the role of human values in environmental issues.
In his 42 years at Princeton, Howarth wrote and edited 13 books, delivered hundreds of papers and lectures on nature-culture issues, served Princeton on 45 faculty committees and led 51 alumni seminars and colleges, recently on journeys to New Zealand and Tanzania.