About 
John Knott came to Michigan as an assistant professor in 1967. Having graduated from Yale University, Knott received his PhD from Harvard’s English Department in 1965. His work through much of his career centered on the English Renaissance, with particular focus on such literary and religious figures as Milton, Bunyan, and Browne, as well as the discourses of Protestant martyrdom. In the 1990s, Professor Knott began to concentrate on the history of American nature writing and American natural places: he edited, with Keith Taylor, The Huron River: Voices from the Watershed (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); in the winter of 2001, he edited with Robert Grese a special issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review titled Reimagining Place; and in 2002, Knott published Imagining Wild America: Wilderness and Wildness in the Writings of John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, and Mary Oliver (University of Michigan Press). Knott has received fellowships from the Carnegie Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the NEH, and the ACLS; from the University of Michigan, Knott has been awarded the Bredvold Prize, two Excellence in Education awards, and an award from the Office of the Vice President for Research.
Knott has made remarkable contributions across the University of Michigan campus in his almost forty years here. He was Associate Dean of LS&A (1977-80), Acting (or Interim) Dean of LS&A in 1980-81, a member of the organizing committee for the Institute for the Humanities and then Acting (Interim) Director in its startup year (1987-1988). More recently, he chaired the organizing and implementation committees for the Program in the Environment and served a year and a half as Interim Director (2001-2002). John Knott was Chair of the English Department from 1982 to 1987; during his tenure as Chair, he started the MFA in Creative Writing. In his institutional endeavors and in his teaching, Knott has forged strong alliances across the University, particularly between the natural sciences and the humanities. We gather on April 7th and 8th to honor Professor Knott, who has been so committed to making the University of Michigan the dynamic intellectual place that it is, and to preserving, understanding, and appreciating the natural world of which we are a part.
The Huron River: Voices from the Watershed (UM Press, 2000) edited, with Keith Taylor
Imagining Wild America (UM Press)
Judge Noah Cheever's "Pleasant Walks and Drives about Ann Arbor"
(UM Bentley Historical Library) with Alicia Lavalle
Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter 2001
A Special Issue: Reimaging Place
Presenters' books will be on sale in Angell Hall. additionally, Emmet Gowin's book will be on sale at UMMA.