William K. Bailey, Ph.D.

Program Manager

Curriculum Vitae (pdf) | Contact

Bill Bailey is the Program Manager for the Center for Humans and Nature’s Lowcountry Initiative at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Bill’s rearing in the mountains of Western Appalachia brought him into close contact with the rugged beauty of the natural world where he and his family were amateur naturalists in their year-round hiking and camping, while close association with an extended family of farmers taught him respect for the land upon which they depended.

These early influences guided Bill’s undergraduate studies in English at the Virginia Military Institute where he focused on the natural world in the work of the English and European Romantics, an interest that continued into his graduate research at the University of South Carolina. Following active duty as an armor officer in the army, Bill expanded his research further into the 19th Century with work on Charles Dickens as well as the effects of the century’s scientific and theological debates on society and its literature. After receiving his PhD, Bill continued to teach at the University of South Carolina until he left this post to take a theological degree at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Bill’s interest in narrative theology is a direct result of his interest in literary studies and experiences in the parochial priesthood. At churches and schools in Texas and South Carolina, Bill taught and addressing issues of social justice, serving finally as Canon for Education and the Arts at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina. His return to the University of South Carolina as research Projects Coordinator at the School of the Environment revived his interest in and study of natural history and evolution, work he incorporated in his recently taught graduate seminar “Culture and Science.” His most recent presentation, “The Self and the Other: Literature, Ethics, and the Environment,” was in November 2006, as part of CHN’s “Humans Nature and Democracy” forum at the New School for Social Research.

Contact:

William K. Bailey, Ph.D.
Program Manager
School of the Environment
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
803-777-1587
803-777-5715 (fax)
billbailey@humansandnature.org