July's Featured Faculty: Mark Eaton, Ph.D.

Written by Regina Ender 

Dr. Mark Eaton’s passion and profession lie at the intersection of American literature, history, religion, and the humanities. In his writing, reading, and teaching, he highlights the meaningful ways these areas of his expertise matter in living a fulfilled and enriched life.

As a budding literary expert, Dr. Eaton earned his B.A. in English and French from Whitworth University and earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Boston University. He said he really found his niche in American literature and religion, which helped him recognize his identity as a scholar. On his path to making a name for himself, he was invited to do a seminar on religion and literature by Mark Knight at the University of Toronto for contributors to The Routledge Companion to Religion and Literature. That experience led to another of the contributors, Luke Ferreter, to invite Eaton to give a lecture at Baylor University, which more than 100 students and faculty attended. Dr. Eaton recalls this sequence of events as evidence that he had officially found his professional calling.

Currently, Dr. Eaton is working on a book entitled Historical Fictions Now, which includes essays about historical fiction by writers Hilary Mantel, Bruce Holsinger, and Naomi Williams. The project was spurred by a conference Eaton participated in at Huntington Library last year that featured historical fiction. Additionally, he is working on a long essay called “Pathways to Terror: Literary Fiction and Radicalization,” which was selected for the Resident Seminar on Religion and Violence at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ next spring. This particular essay draws from some of his work about how 9/11 novels represent the radicalization of terrorists, using inspiration from contemporary scholars of terrorism. On similar topics, he has authored three works, including “Teaching Historical Fiction: Hilary Mantel and the Protestant Reformation,” “Pathways to Terror: Teaching 9/11 Novels,” and “John Updike’s Terrorist.


Throughout his career, Dr. Eaton has been widely recognized for his dedication and work. He received a Templeton Religion Trust grant for his work in the Oxford Seminars in Science and Religion: Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities. Additionally, he has gotten the Junior Research Fellowship from the Rothermere American Institute at University of Oxford, which he considers one of his proudest moments, and looks back on his semester in Oxford as the highlight of his career. He has also earned APU’s Beverly Hardcastle Stanford Fellowship, the Distinguished Service Award for the Honors College, and the Alice V. Watkins Imago Dei Ethos & Diversity Award.

In his work as an educator, Dr. Eaton appreciates his opportunity to walk alongside his students as their intellectual interests are still forming, watching them become self-motivated learners because they were inspired by the subject matter. Prior to working at APU, he taught at Boston University, Oklahoma City University, the University of Oklahoma, Pepperdine University, and Claremont Graduate University, where he frequently serves on Ph.D. dissertation committees. He hopes his students become lifelong learners, and considers himself one as well. Teaching has affirmed to Dr. Eaton how seriously he takes his work and said it keeps him engaged and productive in his discipline. Dr. Eaton cares deeply about service opportunities within his field, including serving as the editor of the journal Christianity and Literature, sitting on a fiction prize committee to select Best Novel of the Year for Christianity Today magazine, and often reading manuscripts for academic journals and publishers.

Words of Wisdom: “Make sure you feel very strongly called to this profession, to the point that you can’t imagine doing anything else with your life, or at the very least, you feel that you would miss out on developing an important part of yourself if you didn’t.”


 

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Note: This information is current for the 2023-24 academic year; however, all stated academic information is subject to change. Refer to the current Academic Catalog for more information.