Nina Baym
Encyclopedia
Nina Baym is an American literary critic and literary historian. She was professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign between 1963 and 2004.
Before her retirement at the University of Illinois Baym was a Swanlund Endowed Chair, a Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and a Center of Advanced Study Professor of English. Her work in US literary criticism and history is widely credited with expanding the field to include women writers while taking the focus off "great" writers according to a supposed unchanging value judgment and placing it instead on the dynamics of literary professionalism. She is the author or editor of a number of groundbreaking works of American literary history and criticism, beginning with Woman's Fiction (Cornell, 1978), and including Feminism and American Literary History (Rutgers, 1992), American Women Writers and the Work of History (Rutgers, 1995), and "American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences" (Rutgers, 2004). She is also the author of scores of articles, reviews, and essays including "Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Authors" (American Quarterly 1981). Elaine Showalter
has called Baym's new (2011) Women Writers of the American West, 1833-1927 (University of Illinois Press), "the first comprehensive guide to women's writing in the old West," an immediately "standard and classic text." This book uncovers and describes the western-themed writing in diverse genres of almost 350 American women, most of them unknown today but many of them successful and influential in their own time. Since 1991 Baym has served as General Editor of the Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Nina Baym has been active in such professional associations as the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association and the American Studies Association, as well as serving as Director of the School of Humanities at the University of Illinois from 1976-1987. She has served on panels for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbight Foundation. Among her numerous literary prizes, fellowship, and honors are the 2000 Jay B. Hubbell Award for lifetime achievement in American literary studies (from the Modern Language Association
) and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, and the Mellon Foundation.
Baym was born in Princeton, New Jersey; her father was an eminent mathematician and her mother taught high school English. She received her B.A. from Cornell University
, an M.A. from Radcliffe, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University
. She was married to Gordon Baym from 1958 to 1970; their two children are Nancy Baym
and Geoffrey Baym. She has been married to Jack Stillinger since 1971.
Before her retirement at the University of Illinois Baym was a Swanlund Endowed Chair, a Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and a Center of Advanced Study Professor of English. Her work in US literary criticism and history is widely credited with expanding the field to include women writers while taking the focus off "great" writers according to a supposed unchanging value judgment and placing it instead on the dynamics of literary professionalism. She is the author or editor of a number of groundbreaking works of American literary history and criticism, beginning with Woman's Fiction (Cornell, 1978), and including Feminism and American Literary History (Rutgers, 1992), American Women Writers and the Work of History (Rutgers, 1995), and "American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences" (Rutgers, 2004). She is also the author of scores of articles, reviews, and essays including "Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Authors" (American Quarterly 1981). Elaine Showalter
Elaine Showalter
Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She is one of the founders of feminist literary criticism in United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics.She is well known and respected in both academic and popular...
has called Baym's new (2011) Women Writers of the American West, 1833-1927 (University of Illinois Press), "the first comprehensive guide to women's writing in the old West," an immediately "standard and classic text." This book uncovers and describes the western-themed writing in diverse genres of almost 350 American women, most of them unknown today but many of them successful and influential in their own time. Since 1991 Baym has served as General Editor of the Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Nina Baym has been active in such professional associations as the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association and the American Studies Association, as well as serving as Director of the School of Humanities at the University of Illinois from 1976-1987. She has served on panels for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbight Foundation. Among her numerous literary prizes, fellowship, and honors are the 2000 Jay B. Hubbell Award for lifetime achievement in American literary studies (from the Modern Language Association
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
) and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, and the Mellon Foundation.
Baym was born in Princeton, New Jersey; her father was an eminent mathematician and her mother taught high school English. She received her B.A. from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, an M.A. from Radcliffe, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. She was married to Gordon Baym from 1958 to 1970; their two children are Nancy Baym
Nancy Baym
Nancy Baym, Ph.D. is an American academic, currently a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. She was a member of the founding board and former president of the Association of Internet Researchers, and serves on the board of several academic journals covering new media and...
and Geoffrey Baym. She has been married to Jack Stillinger since 1971.
Books authored or edited
- Women Writers of the American West, 1833-1927, Illinois, 2011
- Norton Anthology of American Literature, 3rd through 8th editions. W.W. Norton, 1985 - present.
- American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences. Rutgers, 2002.
- American Women Writers and the Work of History. Rutgers, 1995.
- Feminism and American Liteary History: Essays. Rutgers, 1992.
- Woman's Fiction. Cornell University Press, 1978.
- Shape of Hawthorne's Career. Cornell University Press, 1976.
External links
- Melville's Quarrel with Fiction an essay.