Dr. Kathleen L. (Gamill) Nichols

November 29, 1942 - November 17, 2020
English Professor Emerita, Pittsburg State University

From The Literary Encyclopedia:

"Kathleen L. Nichols was Professor Emerita of English at Pittsburg State University where, for over thirty-five years, she taught a wide variety of classes such as The Realistic Period in American Literature, Emily Dickinson, The Jazz Age in American Literature and Culture, American Gothic, and The Goddess in Myth and Literature. In 1978, she also co-founded and, for the next twenty-three years, directed the Women's Studies Program at PSU. Prior to that, she taught at Texas Tech University and the University of Nebraska--Lincoln where she also received her Ph.D. in 1975.

She has had articles, essays, and reviews published in American Women Writers; College English; Contemporary American Women Poets; Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual; Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies; Literary Encyclopedia; Kansas English; Midwest Quarterly; Notes on Modern American Literature; Perspectives on Contemporary Literature; Regionalism and the Female Imagination; Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature; Theatre History Studies; and Women and Western American Literature, and has had articles on Anne Sexton reprinted in Anne Sexton: Telling the Tale (1988) and in Sexton: Selected Criticism (1988), on Willa Cather in Critical Essays on Willa Cather (1984), and on Ernest Hemingway in Contemporary Literary Criticism (1981).

Her recent projects include co-editing The Emerging 'New Woman': American Women's Short Stories 1865-1917 (2013) and editing a collection of Native American myths, narratives, and songs for Turning Points - Actual and Alternate Histories: Native America from Prehistory to First Contact (2007), and she published articles on Sylvia Plath in A Companion to American Gothic (2014) and on the novels of Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko in Goddesses in World Culture (2011)."

Resources: Dr. Nichols' Web Pages

Links to Dr. Nichols' favorite literature and art recommendations. It is a great resource for creating classes and for personal reading.

Ain't I a Woman? Literature of Slavery and Freedom

Primary and secondary works by/about 19th and 20th century Afro-Americans. Covers abolitionist literature, slave narratives, neo-slave and freedom literature, history, issues, criticism.

Part I

Part II

Part III

American Realism Authors and Contexts

List of primary and secondary works by/about authors. Links to historical and cultural contexts, including Gilded Age impressionists and Ashcan School artists.

Cultural Events Report Form

For extra credit reports.

Eco-Literature/Nature-Writing

Art Tours. 19th Century Landscape Art, Hudson River Valley Painters, Modern Women Artists (Frieda Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe, Judy Chicago, Nora Naranjo-Morse, Betty LaDuke, Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Barbara Kruger), Ecofeminist Art.
Susan Fenimore Cooper's Rural Hours
Margaret Fuller's Magnolia and Leila and Seeress and Mariana
Gloria Orenstein's Reflowering of the Goddess
Gender and Nature Criticism--excerpts from scholarly studies.
Eco-Poetry Online. Emily Dickinson, Joy Harjo, Pat Mora, Nora Naranjo-Morse, Mary Oliver, Simon Ortiz, Pattiann Rogers, Gary Snyder. See also Selected Poems by Women
The Romantics: Nature, Beauty, Power-- nature poetry from the British and American Romantic era.

Jazz and Literature Resources

Jazz Age Literature/Culture, Part I and Jazz Age, Part II and Jazz Age Writers. Langston Hughes and other Harlem Renaissance writers, artists, musicians, and notables; F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and other modernist writers; Picasso, Dali, de Lempicka, Kandinsky, and other artists; resources on Prohibition, flappers, racial violence, sports, automobiles, aviators, art deco, movie stars, the Crash of '29, the scandals/trials of the decade, the new technologies; World War I Poetry.
Jazz Poetry: 1920s-30s and Jazz/Blues: 1920s-30s and Jazz Film: 1920s-present.
Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation? 1921 article.
Flapper Jane. 1920s article.
A Flapper's Appeal to Parents. 1920s article.
When the Negro Was in Vogue. Selections from Langston Hughes and Thurman Wallace.

Literature and Art

Arthurian Literature and Art: Celtic, Medieval--primary and secondary texts and artwork.
Arthurian Literature and Art: Victorian, Modern --primary and secondary texts and artwork.
Arthurian Legends Illustrated --the stories portrayed in paintings. Part I--The Legend Begins; Part 2--Some Tragic Lovers; Part 3--Magic and Sorcery; Part 4--Healing the Fisher King; Part 5--Galahad's Grail Quest; Part 6--The Dream Falls Apart; Part 7--The Female Quest of Remedios Varo.
The Ophelia Page --commentary and images.
Expressionist Art Gallery--images.
Impressionist and Ash Can Art--images and links.
The Monstrous Feminine in Literature and Art --gothic and grotesque texts and images
Art in Willa Cather's Fiction --images of paintings alluded to in Cather's writings.

Native American Narratives and Poetry

Origin/Creation Tales; Trickster Tales; Goddess Tales; Oral Poetry/Songs; Ghost Dance Songs.

Pre-Raphaelite Women, Art, and Poetry

Part A The Male Gaze: D. G. Rossetti
Part B Christina Rossetti, PR Poet
Part C PR Models, Lovers, Art-Sisters
Part D PR Art-Sisters Gallery, Pages I-IV
Part E PR Brotherhood Gallery
Part E PR Literature & Art Resources

Classes Taught

Engl 230: American Literature Survey

Engl 555/755: African Literatures

Engl 555/755: Goddess Myth/Literature

Engl 555/755: Arthurian Literature

Engl 565: American Genre: Novel

Engl 565: American Genre: Drama

Engl 565: American Short Story Cycles

Engl 566-01: American Gothic

Engl 566: Jazz Age Lit/Culture (Am. Theme)

Engl 570: International Genre: Novel

Engl 571: Caribbean Lit. (International Theme)

Engl 571: Modern Literature of the Americas

Engl 571: International Theme: Back-to-Africa

Engl 5xx: Western Colonial/Postcolonial Lit.

Engl 771: Major Authors (Ellison/Morrison)

Engl 772: Contemporary American Period

Engl 772-01: American Realistic Period

Engl 875: Seminar: Emily Dickinson

Professional Education

B.A. English, Augustana College

M.A. English, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Ph.D. English, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Teaching Experience

May 2012 Retired (Professor Emerita)

1978-2012 Pittsburg State University

1975-1978 Texas Tech University

1969-1975 University of Nebraska--Lincoln

Teaching Specialties

American Literature; American Drama
Emily Dickinson; Gothic American Literature;
Women Writers; Women's Studies;
Afro-Caribbean and International Literatures

Selected Publications

Sarah Orne Jewett
Willa Cather
Ernest Hemingway
Muriel Rukeyser
Anne Sexton
Susanna Rowson
Harriet Waters Preston
Ellen Peck
Miriam Coles Harris
Agnes Smedley
Gwendolyn Brooks
Rebecca Harding Davis
Earlier American Women Playwrights; Bibliography of Earlier American Women Playwrights
Pre-Raphaelite Art Online
Introd./Compiler, Native American Myths, Narratives, & Songs
The Goddess in Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko
Sylvia Plath's Gothic Poetry
Editor of/contributor to several regional/state women's rights newsletters
Book reviews
Co-editor and introduction, The Emerging 'New Woman': Stories by American Women Writers 1865-1917