Mary Wilson

faculty

Mary Wilson, PhD

Associate Professor

English & Communication

Contact

508-999-8273

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Liberal Arts 306

Education

University of Massachusetts, AmherstPhD
University of Massachusetts, AmherstMA
The College of William and MaryBA

Teaching

Programs

Teaching

Courses

A survey of literature written by people living in Great Britain, Ireland, and the historical British Empire from the late 18th century through the present day. Students will be introduced to major literary movements of this period, including Romanticism, Victorian realism, sensation fiction, modernism, postcolonial literature, and contemporary literature.

A foundation course for all English majors, examining traditions and innovations in literature and in the study of literature in English. Students develop writing and research skills in the discipline and improve their knowledge of literary terms and forms, literary history and conventions, literary influence, and new and emerging forms and approaches. Genres studied include poetry, drama, fiction, and literary (creative) non-fiction. The course also examines key issues in the profession of literary studies, such as the development of departments of literature, canon formation, and the relationship of literary theory to literary practice.

A foundation course for English majors in the literature concentration. Introduce students to literary criticism, as well as critical thinking and writing in English Studies. Emphasis in on the application of principles and methods of literary study to selected texts, which prepares students to examine and respond to texts from a variety of critical perspectives.

British fiction written between 1900 and the present. Students will examine the development of the novel and the short story form. Writers studies may include Conrad, Lawrence, Woolf, Joyce, Mansfield, Forster, Rhys, Ford, Spark, Murdoch, Phillips, Rushdie, Kureishi, Ishiguro, McEwan, and Smith.

Advanced study in a topic concerning literary texts in any genre, literary history, or literary culture. Areas of focus may include genre studies, literary theory of criticism or other aspect(s) of the creation, production, reception or consumption of literature. Past topics have included: The American Immigrant Experience, Literary Nonfiction, Reading and Writing Nature and Utopian Dreams, among others.

Teaching

Online and Continuing Education Courses

A foundation course for English majors in the literature concentration. Introduce students to literary criticism, as well as critical thinking and writing in English Studies. Emphasis in on the application of principles and methods of literary study to selected texts, which prepares students to examine and respond to texts from a variety of critical perspectives.
Register for this course.

Research

Research interests

  • Modernism
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • 19th and 20th Century British Literature
  • Women’s Studies and Queer Theory

Mary Wilson earned her PhD in English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2009. She taught at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA, for five years before returning to the UMass system in 2014.  Her research focuses on early 20th century British fiction and on representations of domesticity in modernist literature. She is the author of The Labors of Modernism: Domesticity, Servants, and Authorship in Modernist Fiction (Ashgate, 2013), which argues for greater attention to the role of domestic servants in the development of experimental modernist forms.  She also co-edited Rhys Matters: New Critical Perspectives (Palgrave, 2013), a collection of essays on the work of the Anglo-Caribbean modernist writer Jean Rhys.  Dr Wilson teaches courses on British literature after 1798, place and space in literature, and literary theory and criticism.