Tom Nurmi
About
Background
I am Associate Professor of English Literature and Culture in the Department of Teacher Education, where I teach American and world literatures in the English and Foreign Languages section for the integrated five-year Masters in Teacher Education program.
I hold a Ph.D. in English from the University of Arizona, USA (2012), and I joined the NTNU faculty in 2021 after teaching for many years in the Department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages at Montana State University Billings, USA. There I was Associate Professor of English and affiliated faculty with the Native American and Environmental Studies programs (2014-2021).
Research
My research field is the environmental humanities. My work examines the intersections of literature and environmental science in nineteenth-century America and the broader Atlantic world, particularly how developments in life and earth sciences altered the trajectory of US literary history. My first book, Magnificent Decay: Melville and Ecology (University of Virginia Press, 2020), was shortlisted for the 2020 British Society for Literature and Science Book Prize, and my ongoing research traces the disciplinary barriers between humanities scholars and biological, physical, and materials scientists to explore points of contact across multiple discourses, histories, and practices of knowledge.
I'm also interested in geospatial approaches to literature, law and literature, and the relationship between literature and philosophy. My earlier work looked at the history of American slavery and the legal geographies of settler colonialism, and I co-edited the anthology Melville Among the Philosophers, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), featuring an afterword by Cornel West.
My current book project, Uranium Cadillac: Energy & the Work of Comparative Literature, highlights representations of energy, thermodynamic processes, and radioactive compounds in comparative American literatures alongside the development of modern physics, roughly 1850 to 1970. The book considers how various literary traditions, especially African- American and Native American, have responded to non-living compounds and energetic systems, with broad implications for environmental ethics, indigenous knowledges, material histories of media and literature, and the origins of nuclear studies.
NTNU Research Groups
Environmental Humanities
ScienceHumanities
Indigenous Topics in Education
North American Studies
Teaching
Fall 2023
ENG 6024 - Literature and culture in the classroom (8-13)
PLU 8013 - Theories of Science and Research Ethics
Spring 2023
MGLU 4506 - English-language literature in the classroom (5-10)
Publications
Books
Magnificent Decay: Melville and Ecology. Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism Series. University of Virginia Press, 2020.
Reviewed in Choice Reviews (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2021), Nineteenth-Century Contexts (Taylor & Francis, 2022), Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), and Nineteenth-Century Literature (University of California Press, 2023).
Melville Among the Philosophers. Ed. with Corey McCall. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Book Chapters
“Melville’s Foams.” In The Oxford Handbook of Herman Melville. Ed. Michael Jonik. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Forthcoming 2024.
“Verdure.” In A New Companion to Herman Melville, 2nd Ed. Eds. Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2022.
“Shackle, Sycamore, Shibboleth: Material Geographies of the Underground Railroad.” In Cartographies of Exile: A New Spatial Literacy. Ed. Karen Elizabeth Bishop. Routledge, 2016: 111-132.
“Wallace’s Choice.” In The Wire in the College Classroom: Pedagogical Approaches to the Humanities. McFarland Press, 2015: 160-178.
“The Detective Reader: Force and Form in Poetry,” Student’s Guide for First-Year Writers, eds. Haley-Brown, Lee & Rodriguez (Hayden-McNeil, 2011): 81-88.
Articles
“Mineral Melville.” J19: Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 7.1 (2019): 155-83.
“Shadows in the Shenandoah: Melville, Slavery, and the Elegiac Landscape.” Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies 17:3 (2015): 7-24.
Reprinted in Mickle Street Review: An Electronic Journal of Whitman and American Studies 21 (2016).
“Stranger in Japan.” Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies 18:1 (2016): 128-130.
“Body/Land: Notes on the State of Virginia and the Rhetoric of Possession.” Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Arts and Sciences 3:1 (2012): 97-111.
“Writing Ojibwe: Politics and Poetics in Longfellow’s Hiawatha.” Journal of American Culture 35:3 (2012): 244-257.
Research
My research field is the environmental humanities. My work examines the intersections of literature and environmental science in nineteenth-century America and the broader Atlantic world, particularly how developments in life and earth sciences altered the trajectory of US literary history. My first book, Magnificent Decay: Melville and Ecology (University of Virginia Press, 2020), was shortlisted for the 2020 British Society for Literature and Science Book Prize, and my ongoing research traces the disciplinary barriers between humanities scholars and biological, physical, and materials scientists to explore points of contact across multiple discourses, histories, and practices of knowledge.
Publications
2022
-
Nurmi , Tom.
(2022)
Verdure.
Wiley-Blackwell
Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
2020
-
Nurmi , Tom.
(2020)
Magnificent Decay: Melville and Ecology.
University of Virginia Press
University of Virginia Press
Academic monograph
2017
-
Nurmi , Tom;
McCall, Corey.
(2017)
Melville Among the Philosophers.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Academic anthology/Conference proceedings
Books
-
Nurmi , Tom.
(2020)
Magnificent Decay: Melville and Ecology.
University of Virginia Press
University of Virginia Press
Academic monograph
-
Nurmi , Tom;
McCall, Corey.
(2017)
Melville Among the Philosophers.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Academic anthology/Conference proceedings
Part of book/report
-
Nurmi , Tom.
(2022)
Verdure.
Wiley-Blackwell
Academic chapter/article/Conference paper
Teaching
Courses
- ENG6024 - Literature and Culture in the Classroom
- MGLU1505 - English 1 (5-10) Module 1
- LVUT8086 - English 2 (5-10) module 2
- LVUT8085 - English 2 (5-10) Module 1
Supervision
Current Supervision
“Developing theoretical and methodological approaches to research marine spaces, international environmental law, and institutions,” (Ph.D., Marine Political Ecology and Governance, 2025), Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany.
“Sustainable development: approaching climate change in the 10th grade EFL classroom through project-based learning.” (M.A., English: Teacher Education, 2024), NTNU, Norway.
“Using graphic literature in relation to education on economic minorities and class.” (M.A., English: Teacher Education, 2024), NTNU, Norway.
“Exploring the representation of cultural diversity in non-human Disney films: teacher attitudes towards using film in the Norwegian 6th grade EAL classroom.” (M.A., English: Teacher Education, 2024), NTNU, Norway.
Completed Supervision
“The climate crisis through words and images: raising eco-consciousness and discussing global warming through multimodal texts.” (M.A., English: Teacher Education, 2023), NTNU, Norway.
“Graphic novels in the EFL classroom: an alternative approach to the core values.” (M.A., English: Teacher Education, 2022), NTNU, Norway.
“LGBTQ+ representation in tween literature in the EFL classroom.” (M.A., English: Teacher Education, 2022), NTNU, Norway.
Media
2023
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Popular scientific lectureKovach, Margaret; Cariou, Warren; Utsi, Mai Britt; Garcia Zarranz, Libe; Murray, Helen Margaret; Stokke, Ruth Seierstad. (2023) Indigenous Pedagogies & Methodologies: A Seminar with Mai Britt Utsi, Margaret Kovach, and Warren Cariou. Indigenous Topics in Education, NTNU; Collaboration Oslo Met Indigenous Topics in Education Online Seminar , Online 2023-02-09 - 2023-02-09
2022
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Academic lectureEdgar, Eir-Anne; Nurmi Jr, Thomas David; Hanssen, Jessica Allen; Erdmann, Susan Lynn. (2022) Rough Waters and Smooth Sailing: A Roundtable Discussion on Teaching American Studies in Norway. ASANOR/ Nord Universitet ASANOR 2022 , Bodø 2022-09-29 - 2022-11-01