With the publication of his fi rst book, set for April 2014, Dr. Dennis Austin Britton is poised to bring the English literature research that he has labored on since graduate school to a wider public audience. The book, Becoming Christian: Race, Reformation, and Early Modern English Romance, has been described as “an exciting study that off ers a theological account of race and racialization” in early modern England.
“In the book I was able to draw together many of my previous interests in a more precise way,” says Britton, a University of New Hampshire associate professor of English. “I’ve always been interested in issues of race and religion, and in theology.”
For Britton, the publication of Becoming Christian will mark the latest in a series of noteworthy early career achievements by the recently tenured scholar. Since gaining tenure during the 2012-13 academic year, the scholar has reached new heights by winning an Excellence in Teaching awardfrom the University of New Hampshire (UNH) this past fall.
In addition, Britton recently completed a year-long National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The fellowship helped him finish the research for his forthcoming book.
Without a doubt, years of hard work and persistence have positioned Britton as a bright star in the highly competitive and crowded ranks of English literature scholars. Nonetheless, he credits his journey as a scholar to the guidance he received from one of his undergraduate professors at the University of Southern California.
