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OBU—Oklahoma Baptist University
Dr. Alan Noble
Dr. Alan Noble

Dr. Alan Noble

Associate Professor of English

Biography

Dr. Noble has been teaching composition and literature for over a decade, beginning at Antelope Valley College in his hometown of Lancaster, California, and then at Baylor University. He has contributed scholarship on Cormac McCarthy and has published three books with InterVarsity Press: Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World, and On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living.
In addition, Dr. Noble is a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Vox, First Things, Christianity Today, and The Gospel Coalition.
Dr. Noble has given talks on literature, popular culture, technology, secularism, and related issues at a number of colleges, churches, and organizations.
His wife, Brittany, holds a Master's Degree in Mathematics (CSUN) and Economics (Baylor). They live with three children and attend City Pres.

Visit Dr. Noble's Website

Education

  • B.A., 2004, Cal State University, Bakersfield
  • M.A., 2007, Cal State University, Bakersfield
  • Ph.D., 2013, Baylor University
  • Dissertation: Manifestations of Transcendence in Twentieth Century American Literature: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carson McCullers, J.D. Salinger, and Cormac McCarthy

Courses Taught

  • ENGL 1153: English Composition
  • ENGL 1163: English Composition and Classical Literature
  • ENGL 2013: Western Civ I
  • ENGL 2023: Western Civ II
  • ENGL 2043: Lit of the Western World I
  • ENGL 2053: Lit of the Western World II
  • ENGL 3773: Professional Editing
  • Eng 4403 Transatlantic Modernism 
  • Eng 4413 Contemporary Literature
  • ENGL 4633 Topics in Drama and Film: Film Noir

Publications and Presentations

Presentations:

“Editors as Stewards of Culture,” panel member, Southwest Conference on Christianity 
and Literature, Tulsa, Ok. 2016.

“Making the Outer Darkness Flesh: Outer Dark as Parable.” 25th Anniversary of Blood 
Meridian Conference. The Cormac McCarthy Society. San Marcos, TX. 2010.

“Discontinuity and Dialogue: The Problem of Discourse and Language in McCarthy’s 
The Crossing,” South Central Modern Language Association, Baton Rouge, LA. 2009.

“A World Sublime and Horrible: An Analysis of the Imagery and Symbolism in Blood 
Meridian.” American Literature Association Conference, San Francisco, CA. 2006.

Publications: 

“‘It Took Me a While to Find That One’: McCarthy and the Bible.” Cormac McCarthy 
in Context, edited by Steven Frye, Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming.

Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age, 2018, InterVarsity Press.

Review of Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces by Estes, Andrew 
Keller. Cormac McCarthy Journal 12.1(2014): 99-102.

“Narrative, Being, and the Dialogic Novel: The Problem of Discourse and Language in 
Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing.” Western American Literature 47.3 (Fall 2012): 237-257. 

“The Absurdity of Hope in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road,” South Atlantic Review 76.3 
(Summer 2011): 93-109.