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Christine Woody

(she/her/hers)

2016 Ph.D. Graduate
Dissertation Advisor(s): Michael Gamer
"Romantic Periodicals and the Invention of the Living Author"

Assistant Professor, Widener University

(B.A. McGill University, 2007; M.A. New York University, 2010; Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 2016.)

I work on the literature and print culture of the Romantic period, examining how what we think we know about authorship at this time is challenged and rewritten by the wealth of periodicals--magazines, book reviews, and newspapers--that dominated the market at this historical moment. In my book project, Publishing Personality: Romantic Periodicals and the Paradox of Living Authorship, I argue that periodicals understand authors not simply as legal constructs supported by copyright, but as personalities publishing in real time. The periodical therefore emerges as a site of both dangerous and utopian possibilities, as its writers explore what it might mean to practice authorship in an iterative, conditional space. Underlying this exploration is a shift in what the author represents, from being an exception to the everyday person to a model for them. My research has been supported by Penn's King's College Fellowship, as well as the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, the British Association for Romantic Studies, the Universities' Committee for Scottish Literature, and the Willison Foundation Charitable Trust.

Recently-published work can be found in English Language Notes, Victorian Periodicals Review, and Essays in Romanticism. Forthcoming work will appear in the Keats-Shelley JournalĀ andĀ Uses and Abuses of Romantic Periodicals (ed. Tom Mole and Nicholas Mason) . My book reviews can be found in Romantic Circles, Victorian Periodicals Review, and The Coleridge Bulletin.

During my time at Penn, I have taught in the English, Critical Writing, Liberal and Professional Studies, and Pre-Freshman programs. I teach widely on the literature of the Romantic and Victorian periods, the history of the novel, the history of the book, and media/adaptation.

Courses Taught

spring 2018

ENGL 040.301 British Poetry 1660-1914  
ENGL 102.601 The Gothic  

fall 2017

ENGL 250.301 Wordsworth and Coleridge  

spring 2017

ENGL 103.602 The English Novel and the World canceled  
ENGL 255.301 The Bronte Sisters  

fall 2016

ENGL 101.601 Jane Austen and Adaptation  

summer 2016

fall 2015

ENGL 034.601 History of the Book  
ENGL 050.601 Romantic Revolutions  

spring 2015

spring 2012

ENGL 101.404 Shakespeare and Film