Bonnie MacDonald
Professor of English
Office: Classroom Center 319E
Email: bmacdonald@wtamu.edu
Phone: 806-651-2456
Professional Profile
Dr. MacDonald joined WTAMU in 2008 as head of the Department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages and as a professor of English. She received a B.A. in English and a B.A. in psychology from California State University in Sacramento in 1978 and an M.A. in American studies from the University of Nottingham, England in 1979. She received an M.A. (1983) and Ph.D. (1988) in American literature from Yale University.
Teaching and Related Service
Dr. MacDonald teaches a wide range of American literature, and specializes in literature of the American West. In addition to courses on campus, Dr. MacDonald has offered onsite ranch courses on the literature, culture and history of the American ranching west. Dr MacDonald serves as department coordinator for Community Outreach, and is the Coordinator for the Graduate Program in English.
Research and Creative Activity
Dr. MacDonald is the author of Henry James’s Italian Hours, and has published articles on late 19th-century authors Henry James, Hamlin Garland, and William Dean Howells, as well as on 20th-century Western writers, Gretel Ehrlich, Terry Tempest Williams, Wallace Stegner, and William Kittredge. She has been a participant in NEH seminars, a recipient of teaching awards and research grants, and on the executive council for the Western Literature Association. She has served as co-president of the Western Literature Association in 2011. Dr. MacDonald’s research focuses on the literary and cultural influence of the western historian Frederick Jackson Turner, on Willa Cather, and on Will James. Dr. MacDonald also serves as the WTAMU Series Editor on the American West with Texas A&M University Press.