Eric Nelson is the department's senior professor of modern British literature. Born in Washington, DC, he came to St. Olaf in 1968 with a PhD in modern British (and American) literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; since then his literary interests have been getting more and more comprehensive. He has supervised the Term in the Far East (now the Asian semester) and twice taught the Great Conversation cycle.
His academic vocations and avocations over the years have ranged widely, venturing even into aspects of pop culture in general and detective fiction in particular. In addition to studying and teaching literature, he makes it. Most recently he has taken to haunting the malls. And about the absolute penultimate of all malls he has just completed a book: Mall of America: Reflections of a Virtual Community.
