Prof. Whelan joined Georgia Southern University in 1989 and retired in 2024.

— Biography from the 2024 Spring Commencement program —

Dr. Whelan received a BA in English (1977) from Tennessee Temple University and an MA in English (1981) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. After earning his MA, he taught for three years at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. In 1989, he completed a PhD in English at the University of Maryland, with an emphasis on Early American Puritanism and the poetry of Anne Bradstreet. That same year, he began teaching American Literature, World Literature, and Southern Literature at Georgia Southern. In 1997, he turned his attention toward British Nonconformist writers between 1720 and 1840, focusing on the intersection of religious dissent and literary studies generated through his work with manuscripts and rare printed materials in more than 80 libraries and archives in the UK and America. Since then, he has published nearly 70 articles on such figures as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Benjamin Flower, and Henry Crabb Robinson, as well some prominent British Baptists, such as John Foster, John Ryland, Robert Hall, Andrew Fuller, and numerous nonconformist women writers, both known and unknown, such as Mary Hays, Mary Steele, Mary Scott, and Anne Dutton. Among his books and editions are Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould Flower, 1794-1808 (2008), Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741- 1845 (2009), Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (2011), Other British Voices: Women, Poetry, and Religion, 1766-1840 (2015), as well as editions of The Diary of Andrew Fuller (2016) and Elizabeth Hays Lanfear’s novel, Fatal Errors; or, Poor Mary-Anne (2019). Much of his work can be found on his three websites: Nonconformist and Dissenting Women's Studies, 1650-1850; Mary Hays: Life, Writings, and Correspondence; and Dissenting Studies, 1650-1850. He has also been the recipient of a prestigious NEH Research Fellowship in 2010, as well as short-term research fellowships at the Spencer Library (University of Kansas), the University of Munich, the American Philosophical Society, and the Pforzheimer Collection (New York Public Library), as well as numerous travel grants and awards from the Office of Research at Georgia Southern University and the College of Arts and Sciences. In recognition of his contributions to Georgia Southern and to his academic community, Dr. Whelan is deserving of the title Professor Emeritus of English.*