Showalter, Elaine (1941–)

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Showalter, Elaine (1941–)

American literary critic and educator. Born Elaine Cottler, Jan 21, 1941, in Cambridge, MA; University of California, Davis, PhD.

Taught at Rutgers University (1969–84), then Princeton; developed a school of feminist criticism, which incorporates female experience into literary criticism; writings include A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronté to Lessing (1977), The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830–1980 (1985) and Sexual Anarchy (1991); edited several works, including The New Feminist Criticism (1986), Speaking of Gender (1989) and These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties (1989).