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Dr. David Urban

Professor of English, Collegiate Scholars program advisor

Biography

Professor David V. Urban has written articles and reviews on subjects including Milton, Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, Chekhov, Ibsen, Austen, Addison, Donne, Hawthorne, Melville, Fugard, Tolstoy, Hopkins, Bible, ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric, pedagogy, and contemporary novelist Peter Orner for journals such as Milton Studies, Milton QuarterlyStyleStudies in Philology, Sixteenth-Century Journal, Christianity and Literature, Religion and Literature, Renascence, Notes & Queries, Modern Philology, the Ben Jonson Journal, TheReview of English Studies, The Year’s Work in English Studies, Calvin Theological Journal, Books & Culture, Religions, Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate, Early Modern Literary Studies, Appositions: Studies in Renaissance/Early Modern Literature and Culture, Essays in Criticism, Journal of Markets and Morality, Liberty Matters, Religion and Liberty, Christian Libertarian Review,Cithara, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, and in several book chapters as well as multiple entries in the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, The Milton Encyclopedia, and the Dictionary of Theological Interpretation of the Bible. He formerly served as a reporter and editor for The Rapidian. He is an associate editor for The Year’s Work in English Studies (OUP).  

He has authored Milton and the Parables of Jesus: The Self and the Bible in John Milton’s Writings (Penn State UP, December 2018), and he has edited Religions in Shakespeare’s Writings (MDPI, 2020). He also co-edited Visionary Milton: Essays on Prophecy and Violence (Duquesne UP, 2010) and co-compiled and co-edited John Milton: An Annotated Bibliography, 1989-1999 (Duquesne UP, 2011).   He is currently working on two related book projects that explore both the influence of John Milton upon C. S. Lewis's writing and Lewis's enduring influence upon Milton scholarship.

He is a member of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Faculty Network and has written articles for FEE on Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, and freedom of speech. He is also a Faculty Associate with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He and his wife, Adrienne, have two sons.  

Education

Ph.D., English. University of Illinois at Chicago. 2001, Program: Literature, Preliminary Exams: Early Modern British Literature, 1500-1700; American Literature, Colonial through Civil War; History of Literary Theory, Classical through 1900; Bible as Literature.

M.Div. Divinity School, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois. 1998, Summa cum Laude.

M.A., English. University of Illinois at Chicago. 1994, M.A. Qualifying Paper, "The Developing Language of Immortality in Wordsworth’s Poetry."

B.A., English. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. 1990, Departmental Honors. Phi Beta Kappa. Senior Honors Thesis, “Pastoral Images of Death and Rebirth in Milton and Herbert’s Poetry.” 

Academic Interests

  • Renaissance and seventeenth-century British literature (especially Milton and Shakespeare) 
  • C. S. Lewis
  • American literature through the Civil War 
  • Modern Drama 
  • Bible as literature 

Professional Associations

  • Milton Society of America
  • Intercollegiate Studies Institute
  • Foundation for Economic Education

Awards

  • Sabbatical, Calvin University (2023-24; 12 hours release total)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, spring semester 2022 (one course release)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, fall semester 2020 (one course release)
  • Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship (2019; small grant for book distribution)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, fall semester 2019 (one course release)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, spring semester 2018 (one course release)
  • Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship (2017; small grant for book indexing)
  • Sabbatical, Calvin College (2016-17; four course release total)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, spring semester 2015 (one course release)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, spring semester 2013 (two course release)
  • Calvin Dean's Interim Leave, interim 2013 (one course release)
  • Calvin Research Fellowship, spring semester 2012 (two course release)
  • Sabbatical, Calvin College (2009-10; four course release total)
  • Summer Calvin Research Fellowship, Calvin College (summer 2005, 2006, 2007)
  • Diekema Fellow, Calvin College (fall semester, 2004 [one course release]; fall semester, 2006, [one course release]; spring semester, 2007 [one course release]; fall semester, 2009 [one course release]; spring semester [one course release])
  • Dissertation Research Award, University of Illinois at Chicago (fall semester, 2000)

Community Service Award 

  • Seven Who Care Award, Oklahoma Baptist University, 2003

Publications