Professor of English
On faculty since 2007

  706.419.1619
  william.tate@covenant.edu

Education

Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996

M.A., Duke University, 1986

M.A., Bob Jones University, 1984

B.A., Bob Jones University, 1982

Professional Interests

Because everything is related to everything else, I'm interested in everything. I'm especially interested in the ways theology, philosophy, and literature intersect in the formation and transformation of cultures. I love the literature of the English Renaissance; favorite authors from the period include Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, and Henry Vaughan. I'm also strongly interested in Modern and Contemporary literature; favorites include Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Richard Wilbur, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill among the poets and Walker Percy and Frederick Buechner among the novelists. I'm especially intrigued by the way authors use metaphor and fiction to convey truth, the epistemological status of language, paradox, ambiguity, and similar matters.

Favorite theologians include Karl Barth, Herman Bavinck, Emil Brunner, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Frame, Colin Gunton, Lesslie Newbigin, William Perkins, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Thomas F. Torrance. Favorite philosophers include Hans-Georg Gadamer, Alvin Plantinga, Paul Ricoeur, and Nicholas Wolterstorff (though I don't claim understanding!), and I'm working on the thought of Paul Helm. I look to these writers for help in my effort to understand the world as well as how the invented worlds of literature relate to the actual world.

Personal Interests

I'm married to Patty, a semi-retired teacher of mathematics. We have four children, Joseph (who loves technology and reading), Hannah (who loves reading, writing, and being with friends), Will (who loves animals and science), and Bekah (who loves learning to read and jumping from the top bunk); they're all creative and challenging. For some reason I can't remember, we also have two dogs. On Friday nights we order pizza and watch a movie while we eat, picnic-style, on the family room floor.

I don't get to work at it often, but I love wood and like to build things with it. Patty and I both enjoy pottery, and we have a small collection of pieces by North Carolina potters; we're hoping to add some work by North Georgia artists (maybe after the kids leave home!). I do a lot of the cooking at our house, and when time allows, I enjoy cooking creatively for family and friends (favorite creations include pork-and-oyster pie, three-bean chili, and chocolate cheesecake).

Professional Membership

• Conference on Christianity and Literature

Selected Publications

• "The Affirmation that God is Without Passions." Reformed Perspectives Magazine [ezine at thirdmill.org] November, 2007.
• Solomonic Iconography in Early Stuart England: Solomon's Wisdom, Solomon's Folly, Studies in British History, volume 63. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.
• "Solomon, Gender, and Empire in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus," Studies in English Literature 1500-1900. Spring 1997, 257-276.
• "King James I and the Queen of Sheba," English Literary Renaissance. Autumn 1996, 561-585.