Devoney Looser
{{Short description|American literary and Jane Austen scholar}}
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| name = Devoney Looser
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| image = Devoney Looser 2019 (cropped).jpeg
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| caption = Looser speaking at ASU's 2019 graduation
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| birth_date = April 11, 1967
| birth_place = Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
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| occupation = University Professor
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| spouse = George Justice
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| children = 2
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| awards = Guggenheim Fellowship
| website = {{URL|devoneylooser.com}}
| education = BA, 1989, Augsburg College
PhD, 1993, Stony Brook University
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| thesis_title = Rethinking women/history/literature: a feminist investigation of disciplinarity in Lucy Hutchinson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Charlotte Lennox, and Jane Austen
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| thesis_year = 1993
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| discipline = English literature
| sub_discipline = Jane Austen
| workplaces =Louisiana State University
University of Missouri
Arizona State University
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Devoney Kay Looser (born April 11, 1967) is an American literary critic and Jane Austen scholar. She is Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, where she focuses on women's writing and the history of the novel.
Early life and education
Looser was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota on April 11, 1967,{{cite web |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1000152892/BIC?u=learn&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=09e27208 |title=Devoney Kay Looser |date=February 9, 2004 |work=Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors |publisher=Gale |via=Gale In Context: Biography |access-date=June 15, 2021}} and raised in White Bear Lake, Minnesota,{{cite web |last1=Weirick |first1=John |title=No Plain Jane |url=https://www.augsburg.edu/now/2018/11/19/no-plain-jane/ |website=augsburg.edu |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=November 19, 2018}} where her mother first introduced her to Jane Austen's work.{{cite web |title=Jane Austen on Wheels |url=https://www.augsburg.edu/alumni/2015/04/06/jane-austen-on-wheels/ |website=augsburg.edu |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=April 6, 2015}} Looser attended and graduated from Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, Minnesota in 1985.{{cite web |title=I am a Pioneer |url=https://www.hill-murray.org/alumni/i-am-a-pioneer |website=hill-murray.org |access-date=February 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191108191914/https://www.hill-murray.org/alumni/i-am-a-pioneer |archive-date=November 8, 2019}}
As a first-generation college student, Looser received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Augsburg College in 1989 and later earned her doctorate in English with a certification in women's studies from Stony Brook University.{{cite web |last1=Stoneman |first1=Amanda |title=ASU English professor fosters deep thinkers and problem solvers |url=https://english.asu.edu/news-events/news/asu-english-professor-fosters-deep-thinkers-and-problem-solvers |website=english.asu.edu |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=May 12, 2017}}
Career
After teaching at Indiana State University, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Louisiana State University, and the University of Missouri, Looser accepted a faculty appointment at Arizona State University in 2013.
In 2018, Looser was appointed a Foundation Professor of English for her outstanding faculty accomplishments.{{cite web |last1=LaRue-Sandler |first1=Kristen |title=ASU English department's Devoney Looser named Foundation Professor |url=https://english.asu.edu/news-events/news/asu-english-departments-devoney-looser-named-foundation-professor |website=english.asu.edu |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=August 31, 2018}} In 2020, she was named a Regents Professor, the highest faculty honor awarded at Arizona State University.{{cite web |title=4 Top ASU Scholars named Regents Professors |access-date=November 30, 2021 |date=November 16, 2020|url=https://news.asu.edu/20201116-arizona-impact-asu-names-4-top-scholars-regents-professor-title}}
She has played roller derby as Stone Cold Jane Austen.{{cite web |last1=Cornelius |first1=Keridwen |title=Spotlight: Devoney Looser |website=www.phoenixmag.com |access-date=November 30, 2021 |date=November 1, 2017|url=https://www.phoenixmag.com/2017/11/01/devoney-looser/}}
Books and essays
Looser's book Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës is the first biography of Jane and Anna Maria Porter, pioneers of historical fiction.{{cite news |title=The Porter sisters' 'genius' bestsellers are back in the spotlight |newspaper=Washington Post |access-date=October 26, 2022 |date=October 25, 2022|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/25/porter-ister-novelists-devoney-looser-review/}}
She is also the author of The Making of Jane Austen, which focused on how Austen's popular influencers shaped her reputation, including as "a transnational figure used in support of women's suffrage."{{cite journal |last1=Darcy |first1=Jane |title=Devoney Looser. The Making of Jane Austen. |journal=The Review of English Studies |date=2018 |volume=69 |issue=289 |pages=389–391 |doi=10.1093/res/hgx099 |url=https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/69/289/389/4102135?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=February 12, 2020|url-access=subscription }} Publishers Weekly named The Making of Jane Austen a Best Summer Book (Non-Fiction).{{cite web |title=PW Best Summer Books 2017 |access-date=November 30, 2021 |url=https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/summer-reads-2017/nonfiction#book/book-6}}
Her first book was British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820, which examined British women writers and their contributions to historiography.{{cite journal |last1=Kasmer |first1=Lisa |title=Review of British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820 |journal=The English Historical Review |date=2006 |issue=491 |pages=616 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cel073 |url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXI/491/616/389027 |access-date=February 12, 2020|url-access=subscription }} She followed this up with Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 in 2008.{{cite journal |last1=Murphy |first1=Patricia |title=Review of Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 |journal=Nineteenth-Century Literature |date=2009 |volume=64 |issue=3 |pages=400–402, 435–436 |doi=10.1525/ncl.2009.64.3.400 |id={{ProQuest|211937903}} }}
Looser's essays and op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Slate, and The TLS. In 2019, Looser brought back into view a forgotten fictional pen portrait of Austen published in an 1823 issue of The Lady's Magazine.{{cite web |last1=Lewis |first1=Britt |title=A new way of picturing Jane Austen |url=https://english.asu.edu/news-events/news/new-way-picturing-jane-austen |website=english.asu.edu |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=January 13, 2020}} In 2021, she published discoveries about the Austen family's complicated relationship to slavery and anti-slavery, which revealed the previously unknown fact that Jane Austen's brother, Henry Thomas Austen, had been a delegate to an Anti-Slavery Convention.{{cite web |last1=Looser |first1=Devoney |title=Breaking the silence: Exploring the Austen family's complex entanglements with slavery |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/jane-austen-family-slavery-essay-devoney-looser/ |website=www.the-tls.co.uk |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=May 21, 2021}}
File:Whit-stillman-matsunaga-2017-2523 (33744217735).jpg after a screening of his 1990 film Metropolitan.]] She has done lectures on Jane Austen for The Great Courses {{cite web|title=The Life and Works of Jane Austen, The Great Courses |access-date=November 30, 2021 |url=http://www.thegreatcourses.com/janeausten}}
Recognition
In 2018, Looser was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar award to research the sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porter.{{cite web |last1=Greguska |first1=Emma |title=ASU English prof to plumb lives of literary sisters with Guggenheim Fellowship |url=https://english.asu.edu/news-events/news/asu-english-prof-plumb-lives-literary-sisters-guggenheim-fellowship |website=english.asu.edu |access-date=February 12, 2020 |date=April 17, 2018}}
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book |author=Looser, Devoney |year=2022 |title= Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës |publisher=Bloomsbury US |location=New York |url=https://sisternovelists.com}}
- {{cite book |editor=Looser, Devoney |year=2021 |title=The Life and Works of Jane Austen |publisher=Great Courses |location=Chantilly, VA |url=http://www.thegreatcourses.com/janeausten}}
- {{cite book |editor=Looser, Devoney |year=2019 |title=The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo42348902.html}}
- {{cite book |editor=Looser, Devoney |year=2019 |title=Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811) |publisher=Penguin Random House |location=New York |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/286397/sense-and-sensibility-by-jane-austen-edited-with-an-introduction-by-devoney-looser/}}
- {{cite book |author=West, Jane |year=2015 |title=A Gossip's Story, and A Legendary Tale (1796) |editor=Devoney Looser |editor2=Melinda O'Connell |editor3=Caitlin Kelly|publisher=Valancourt Books |location=Charlottesville, VA |url=https://www.valancourtbooks.com/a-gossips-story-1796.html |isbn=9781943910151}}* {{cite book |author=Looser, Devoney |year=2017 |title=The Making of Jane Austen |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, MD |doi=10.1353/book.51997 |isbn=9781421422824 |url=https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/making-jane-austen}}
- {{cite book |editor=Looser, Devoney |year=2015 |title=Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in the Romantic Period |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |doi=10.1017/CCO9781139061315 |isbn=9781139061315 |s2cid=150938469 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-womens-writing-in-the-romantic-period/A6A5DCB58EEA02E2B15376E2E5865C78#fndtn-information}}
- {{cite book |author=Looser, Devoney |year=2008 |title= Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, MD |doi=10.1353/book.3466 |isbn=9780801887055 |url=https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/women-writers-and-old-age-great-britain-1750%E2%80%931850}}
- {{cite book |author=Looser, Devoney |year=2001 |title= British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, MD |doi=10.56021/9780801864483 |isbn=9780801876400 |url=https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/british-women-writers-and-writing-history-1670-1820}}
- {{cite book |editor=Looser, Devoney |year=1997|title=Generations: Academic Feminists in Dialogue|publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |url=https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/generations}}
- {{cite book |editor=Looser, Devoney |year=1995 |title=Jane Austen and Discourses of Feminism|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |url=https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780312123673}}
External links
- {{Google Scholar id|lyOUPOQAAAAJ}}
- [https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/284225/cv CV]
- [https://www.devoney.com Personal website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110202135419/http://devoney.com/ |date=2011-02-02 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Looser, Devoney}}
Category:American literary critics
Category:American women literary critics
Category:People from White Bear Lake, Minnesota
Category:Arizona State University faculty
Category:Louisiana State University faculty
Category:University of Missouri faculty
Category:Stony Brook University alumni
Category:Augsburg University alumni