Professor / Author / Speaker
Professor of Humanities and Classical Education
University of Dallas
About
Jessica Hooten Wilson is Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas in the Classical Education and Humanities Graduate Program. She is the author of three books: Giving the Devil his Due: Flannery O’Connor and The Brothers Karamazov, which received a 2018 Christianity Today book of the year award; Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Search for Influence; and Reading Walker Percy’s Novels. In 2019 she received the Hiett Prize for Humanities from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. She is co-editor of the volume Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West, a collection of essays on the legacy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Currently, she is preparing Flannery O’Connor’s unfinished novel Why Do the Heathen Rage? for publication.
Education
Baylor University
Ph.D in Religion and Literature (2006-2009)
University of Dallas
M.A. in English (2004-2006)
Pepperdine University
B.A. in Creative Writing (2000-2004)
Employment
Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence, Humanities and Classical Education
University of Dallas, 2020-2021
Associate Professor, Humanities
John Brown University, 2013-2020
Graduate Instructor, Catholic Studies, Distance Education
University of St. Thomas, 2019
Fulbright Scholar
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, 2014
Director, Study Abroad in London
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Spring 2013
Assistant Professor, English
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, 2009-2013
Instructor of Great Texts
Honors College, Baylor University, 2007-2009
Honors and Awards
Hiett Prize in the Humanities Recipient 2019
The Hiett Prize in the Humanities is an annual award of $50,000 aimed at identifying candidates who are ascending in a career devoted to the humanities and whose work shows extraordinary promise to have a significant impact on contemporary culture.
Emerging Scholar in Theology and the Arts
“Culture and the Arts” Book of the Year Award 2018
From Christianity Today, for Giving the Devil his Due: Flannery O’Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Cascade Books 2017.
Emerging Public Intellectual Award 2017
From Redeemer University College, CARDUS, Acton Institute, Henry Institute, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, and Center for Public Justice.
Research Fellow
Biola University Center for Christian Thought, Grant from Templeton Trust (Fall 2017)
National Endowment for the Humanities
Summer Institute on Dante in Florence, Italy (Summer 2014)
Academic Service
- Academic Board, Classical Learning Test (2020)
- Chair of the Board and Founder, Sager Classical Academy
- Committee for the Catholic Imagination Conference
- Judge for Conference on Christianity and Literature Book of the Year Award (2018)
- Education Committee, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (Spring 2019)
- SCMLA Chair of Flannery O’Connor Regular Session (Tulsa 2017)
- Director of “Teaching the Truth in Love” Professional Development workshop for Honors Scholars Faculty (February 2017)
- JBU Faculty Colloquium on Fulbright (Fall 2016)
- SWCCL Conference Director (November 2014)
- JBU Chapel Presentation (September 2014)
- JBU Faculty Colloquium on Teaching Abroad (September 2014)
- Convocation speaker, Pepperdine University, London program (Spring 2013)
- Judge of the Annual Fiction Contest, Christianity Today (2011-2013)
- Provost’s Academic Leadership Seminar, UMHB (2010, 2011)
- College and Career Readiness Initiative, Austin, TX (February 2011)
- University Scholars’ Day Committee, UMHB (2010-2012)
- Core Curriculum Committee, UMHB (2010-2012)
- Sigma Tau Delta Book Club Presenter, UMHB: “Chestertonian Reading of Alice in Wonderland.” (April 2010)
- President and Founder of ISI Graduate Reading Group, Baylor University (2007-2009)
- Head Graduate Fellow, Honors Residential College, Baylor University (2008-2009)
- English Graduate Student Association, Baylor University, Social Chair (2007-2008)