Professor Emeritus
Kevin McCarthy received his BA in English (1963) from LaSalle College, his MA in American Literature (1966) from the University of North Carolina, and his PhD in Linguistics (1970) from the University of North Carolina. He was a member of the UF Department of English from 1969 to 2005, where he taught courses in Linguistics, Modern English Structure, History of the English Language, Writing About Football, and the Teaching of English as a Second Language.
His other teaching experiences include two years in the Peace Corps in Turkey (1963–65), one year as a Fulbright Professor in Lebanon (1971–72), and two years as a Fulbright Professor in Saudi Arabia (1982–84). He has also taught in the Linguistic Institute of America and in the Aegean Institute (Greece). Every other summer he teaches a course on the Maritime History of Greece to American college students on the Greek island of Paros. He and his wife spend a month each summer lecturing on cruise ships sailing in and around Europe. For 18 years he was the Executive Director of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society, produced its quarterly newsletter and planned its annual three-day meeting.
He has published 35 books, 30 of them about Florida, including Florida Lighthouses (1990), The Book Lover’s Guide to Florida (1992), Thirty Florida Shipwrecks (1992), African Americans in Florida (1993), The Gators and the Seminoles (1993), Twenty Florida Pirates (1994), Baseball in Florida (1996), Guide to the University of Florida and Gainesville (1997), Native Americans in Florida (1999), and Christmas in Florida (2000).
He has also testified as an “expert grammarian” in law cases dealing with the interpretation of language in contracts dealing with real estate, employee relations, and prenuptial contracts.
Contact
- email: <kmccarth@english.ufl.edu>