Colacurcio's main interest is American literature of the colonial and Romantic periods. While he has written extensively on such subjects as Puritanism, Herman Melville, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, he is perhaps best known for his scholarship on the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. ;The Province of Piety In The Province of Piety, Colacurcio argues against symbolist or psychologizing interpretations and maintains that Hawthorne's fiction ought to be understood primarily as historical literature, that is, as it reflects on the moral history of his native New England. Hawthorne "possessed the mind of a modern intellectual historian," according to Colacurcio, who compares his subject to the American historian Perry Miller: "For like Miller, it may be suggested, Hawthorne carried on a life-long dialectic with the historical 'thesis' of American Puritanism; it was his 'flood subject,' exercising a tyranny that bent the mind and baffled choice." And as a writer of fiction, "Hawthorne had a nearly flawless sense of the way some text always comes between the observer and the origins he would observe, making the historian's own tale twice-told at its very most original." ;Critical reception Historian David Levin says, "Mr. Colacurcio's massive study, more powerfully than any other single work I know, advances our understanding of Hawthorne's development and practice as a historical writer," adding: "Whether or not we can read Hawthorne intelligently or profitably without knowing the history of colonial New England, Mr. Colacurcio proves that we will read Hawthorne more intelligently if we take the trouble to see the range and depth of his historical judgment." Literary critic Merton Sealts, Jr. notes that "The Province of Piety has significant interdisciplinary implications," and that, "future critics of Hawthorne cannot ignore the impressive argument of this book." ;Other works Colacurcio's Doctrine and Difference is a collection of writings that demonstrate the lasting influence of Puritan orthodoxy in the New England literary tradition, with essays on Jonathan Edwards, RalphWaldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, and others. His more recent book, Godly Letters, a study of the Puritan tradition in American literature, is described by a reviewer in The New England Quarterly as "an illuminating and deeply searching compendium that embodies the culmination of a lifelong career in research and teaching." In 2015, a Festschrift titled A Passion for Getting It Right: Essays and Appreciations in Honor of Michael J. Colacurcio’s 50 Years of Teaching was published in Colacurcio's honor. It includes contributions from former students and colleagues such as Andrew Delbanco and Eric J. Sundquist.
Honors
Michael Colacurcio is the recipient of several distinguished teaching awards from both Cornell University and UCLA. In 2007, Colacurcio was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his contributions to his field.
