Nancy Armstrong
Encyclopedia
Nancy Armstrong is a scholar, critic and is a professor of English at Duke University
.
. She is interested in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and American fiction, empire and sexuality, narrative and critical theory, and visual culture. She is best known for her groundbreaking book on the relationship between subjectivity and the novel, Desire and Domestic Fiction.
Over the course of her career, Armstrong has published many books and nearly one hundred articles and chapters. Her two recent books are How Novels Think: British fiction and the Limits of Individualism (Columbia University Press, 2005), which is about the relationship between the formation of the modern individual and the genre of the novel, and Fiction in The Age of Photography: The Legacy of British Realism (Harvard University Press, 1999), which lays out a theory of realism
that connects visual culture and fiction.
In 1992, Armstrong published, together with Leonard Tennenhouse, "a pioneer[ing] study in the field of transatlantic literary relations", The Imaginary Puritan: Literature, Intellectual Labor, And The Origins Of Personal Life (University of California Press, 1992), which looks at the relationship between the author and the emerging nation-state.
Armstrong is currently working on a project provisionally titled Gothic Remains. She is also managing editor of Novel: A Forum on Fiction and co-editor of Encyclopedia of British Literary History.
Armstrong received her B.A. in 1966 from the State University of New York at Buffalo and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
in 1977. She is a past president of the Semiotic Society of America
(1992).
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
.
Overview
Before moving to Duke, Armstrong was the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Comparative Literature, English, Modern Culture & Media, and Gender Studies at Brown UniversityBrown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
. She is interested in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and American fiction, empire and sexuality, narrative and critical theory, and visual culture. She is best known for her groundbreaking book on the relationship between subjectivity and the novel, Desire and Domestic Fiction.
Life and work
Armstrong's most influential book is Desire And Domestic Fiction: A Political History Of The Novel (Oxford University Press, 1987), a work of scholarship still relevant twenty years after its publication. As one reviewer put it, the book "changed the ways in which feminist critics of these novels saw the work these texts did; it changed the way we thought about public and private, agency and oppression, writing and action, giving us a far broader sense of the cultural work that novels do, as they translate political information into narratives about sex, gender, and desire."Over the course of her career, Armstrong has published many books and nearly one hundred articles and chapters. Her two recent books are How Novels Think: British fiction and the Limits of Individualism (Columbia University Press, 2005), which is about the relationship between the formation of the modern individual and the genre of the novel, and Fiction in The Age of Photography: The Legacy of British Realism (Harvard University Press, 1999), which lays out a theory of realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
that connects visual culture and fiction.
In 1992, Armstrong published, together with Leonard Tennenhouse, "a pioneer[ing] study in the field of transatlantic literary relations", The Imaginary Puritan: Literature, Intellectual Labor, And The Origins Of Personal Life (University of California Press, 1992), which looks at the relationship between the author and the emerging nation-state.
Armstrong is currently working on a project provisionally titled Gothic Remains. She is also managing editor of Novel: A Forum on Fiction and co-editor of Encyclopedia of British Literary History.
Armstrong received her B.A. in 1966 from the State University of New York at Buffalo and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
in 1977. She is a past president of the Semiotic Society of America
Semiotic Society of America
The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional association serving scholars from many disciplines with common interests in semiotics, the study of signs and sign-systems. It was founded in 1975 and includes members from the United States and Canada. Its official journal is The...
(1992).