Elaine Showalter to Speak on Women Writers and American Literary History

Showalter will speak in Ulrich Recital Hall in Tawes on December 4.

The Transatlantic Poetics Lecture Series, the Local Americanists, and the Center for Literary and Comparative Studies welcome Elaine Showalter, emerita Professor of English at Princeton University, for a talk, "Women Writers and American Literary History." The lecture will be delivered on Friday, December 4th at 4:00PM in the Ulrich Recital Hall, 1121 Tawes Hall at the University of Maryland. A reception will follow.

Former President of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and chair at Princeton University, and author of books too numerous to mention (A Literature of Their Own and Teaching Literature being among the most prominent), Professor Showalter will discuss the process and problems of writing the first literary history of American women writers and suggest how American literary history is transformed by the incorporation of women's writing over four centuries.

Her talk is based on her new widely acclaimed book, A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Anne Proulx (Knopf, 2009). Referring to that book, the Los Angeles Times says Showalter "brings a perspective to changing literary culture that makes criticism seem not only understandable but also healthy and invigorating, making the work timeless in its ability to weather readers' changing priorities."