CURRICULUM VITAE

                                                                     (short form)        

 

Paula R. Backscheider

Department of English

Auburn University

Auburn, AL 36849

Telephone: 334/844-9091

Fax: 334/844-9027

Email: pkrb@auburn.edu

 

 

Education and Employment

 

Ph.D. Purdue University , 1972

Rollins College , Assistant Professor

University of Rochester , Assistant Professor to Roswell S. Burrows Professor

Auburn University , Philpott-Stevens Eminent Scholar, 1992-

 

Selected Fellowships, Grants, and Awards

 

William Andrews Clark Fellow, UCLA, summer, 1974.

American Philosophical Society Grants, 1975, 1980, and 1986.

Senior Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1983.

American Antiquarian Society Fellowship, 1987.

Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Edinburgh , 1980-

John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, calendar year 1991.

National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Seminar on "Biography and the Uses of Biographical Evidence," summer 1992 and summer 1994.

Creative Research Award, Auburn University , 2001.

 

Selected Honors

 

British Council Award, Best Book in the Humanities, 1990.

Nominee, College of Liberal Arts Advising Award (nominated by Black Student Union and African-American Peer Mentors), 2000.

Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, 2000-

Outstanding Service Award, Office of Multicultural Affairs, 2001.

Southern Poverty Law Center Wall of Tolerance Honoree, 2001.

Purdue University Millenium Distinguished Alumna Award, 2001.

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Great Teachers, 2001.

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Paula Backscheider Archival  Fellowship, established 2001.

Member, College of Liberal Arts Academy of Teaching and Outstanding Teachers, 2003.

Distinguished Teaching Award, ODK Honorary Society, 2003.     

World Women’s Literature Center Award, Korea , 2003.

 

 

 

 


Works in Progress

 

Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel, under contract to Blackwell Publishers, Oxford University Press.

 

Obsessed by the Novel.

 

Critical Books

 

Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry: Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

 

Reflections on Biography, Oxford :  Oxford University Press, 1999.  Selected by Choice as one of the Outstanding Academic Books for 2000.  Paperback, 2001.  Textbook, 2004.

 

Spectacular Politics:  Theatrical Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England , Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

 

Daniel Defoe:  His Life, Baltimore :   Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.  Winner of the 1990 British Council Prize for the Best Book in the Humanities and selected by Choice as one of the ten Outstanding Academic Books for 1990. Paperback, 1990.

 

Daniel Defoe:  Ambition and Innovation, Lexington :  The University Press of Kentucky , 1986.

 

A Being More Intense:  The Prose Works of Bunyan, Swift, and Defoe, New York :  AMS Press, 1984.

 

Editorships

 

The Dictionary of Literary Biography:  Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama, 3 vols. Detroit :  Gale, 1989.

 

The Eighteenth-Century:  A Current Bibliography, for English books, co-editor for 1983 and editor for 1984-86.     

 

Eighteenth-Century Drama, 69 vols. New York :  Garland Press, completed 1983.

 

Books and Editions

 

A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture , co-edited with Catherine Ingrassia, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2005.

 

Revising Women:  Eighteenth-Century "Women's Fiction" and Social Engagement, ed., Baltimore :  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000 (for November 1999). Paperback, 2002.

 

Selected Fiction and Drama of Eliza Haywood, ed., Oxford :  Oxford University Press, 1999.

 

Popular Fiction by Women, 1660-1730:  An Anthology, with John J. Richetti, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1996; second edition, 1998.

 


The Excursion by Frances Brooke, ed. with Hope D. Cotton, Lexington :  The University Press of Kentucky , 1997.

 

The Intersections of the Public and Private Spheres in Early Modern England, a special issue of Prose Studies 18 (1995), with Tim Dykstal.  Published separately as a book (London: Frank Cass, 1996).

 

A Journal of the Plague Year, New York :  Norton Critical Edition, 1992.

 

The Family Instructor, an edition with introduction, Delmar, New York :  Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1989.

 

Moll Flanders:  The Making of a Criminal Mind, Boston :  G. K. Hall, 1990.

 

The Plays of Samuel Foote, ed. (with Douglas Howard), 3 vols. New York :  Garland Press, 1983.

 

The Plays of Elizabeth Inchbald, ed., 2 vols. New York :  Garland Press, 1980.

 

The Plays of Charles Gildon, ed. New York :  Garland Press, 1979.

 

Probability, Time, and Space in Eighteenth-Century Literature, ed. New York :  AMS Press, 1979.

 

An Annotated Bibliography of Twentieth-Century Studies of Women and Literature, 1660-1800 (with Felicity Nussbaum and Philip Anderson), New York :  Garland Press, 1977.

 

Articles (forthcoming)

 

"Strange Lovers: Rowe, Colman, and the Novel" in a festschrift edited by George Justice and Albert Rivero.

 

“Shadowing Theatrical Change” in Redefining Theatre History, ed. Peter Holland and Michael Cordner.

 

“The Paradigms of Popular Culture” in Gender and Popular Culture, 1650-1750, ed. David Porter.

 

“Daniel Defoe, The Man in his Works” in The Cambridge Companion: Daniel Defoe, ed. John J. Richetti.

   

“The Bluestockings” in Encyclopedia of Women in World History, ed. Bonnie G. Smith.

 

Articles (published)

 

“Literary Culture As Immediate Reality” in A Companion to The Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture, ed. Paula Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2005): 504-538.

 

“Crusoe Among the Travelers” in Modern Language Association Approaches to Teaching Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, ed. Maximillian E. Novak and Carl Fisher (New York: Modern Language Association, 2005): 69-77.

 


“Behind City Walls: Restoration Actors in the Drapers’ Company” in Theatre Survey 45 (2004): 75-87.

 

“Eighteenth-Century Women Poets” in The Cambridge History of English Literature ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004): 209-34

 

Seven entries in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:  Daniel Defoe, Eliza Haywood, Mary Davys, William Bullock, George Powell, Elizabeth Barry, and Moll King, ( Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004).

 

“The Crime Wave and Moll Flanders” in Moll Flanders, ed. Albert Rivero ( New York : Norton, 2004): 460-71.

 

“Inverting the Image of Swift’s ‘Triumfeminate,’” Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies 4 (2004): 41-77.

 

“Fashioning Novels, Novelizing Fashions,” in Eighteenth-Century Genre and Culture Serious Reflections on Occasional Forms: Essays in Honor of J. Paul Hunter, ed. Dennis Todd and Cynthia Wall ( Newark : University of Delaware Press, 2001): 190-217.

 

“Honorary Subscriber:  Daniel Defoe,” Edupage (published by Educause), 10 January 1999.

 

“Looking Backward, Looking Forward: MLA Members Speak.”  PMLA, Special Millennium Issue.  115 (2000): 2043-44.

 

“The Story of Eliza Haywood’s Novels:  Caveats and Questions,”in The Passionate Fictions Of Eliza Haywood, ed. Kirsten Saxton and Rebecca Bocchicchio ( Lexington :  University Press of Kentucky, 2000): 19-47.

 

“Reflections on the Importance of Romantic Drama,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 41 (1999):  311-29.

 

“The Shadow of an Author,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 11 (1998): 79-102.

 

“Daniel Defoe’s Russia ,” Literaturnoe nasledstvo, Pushkin Institute, Leningrad , 1998.

 

"Roxana," Critical Essays on Daniel Defoe, ed. Roger D. Lund, (Boston:  G.K. Hall, 1997): 236-265.

 

"'Endless Aversion Rooted in the Soul': Divorce in the 1690-1730 Theater," The Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation 37 (1996): 99-135.

 

"Stretching the Form: Catherine Trotter Cockburn and Other Failures," Theatre Journal 47 (1995): 443-58.

 

"Daniel Defoe and Early Modern Intelligence," Journal of Intelligence and National Security 11 (1996): 1-21.

 


"The Cavalier Woman," Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 24 (1995): 3-27.

 

"Bibliography of Defoe Criticism in the Far East: China and Taiwan , Japan , and Korea ," with Hope Cotton, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 8.1 (1995): 89-142.

 

"The Woman's Part:  Defoe, Richardson , and the Horrors of Marriage," The Past as Prologue, ed. Carla Hay and Syndy Conger (New York:  AMS, 1995): 205-231.

 

"Sex, Sin, and Ideology:  The Drama's Gift to the Genesis of the Novel," in Lumen 12 (1993): 1-15.

 

"Stalking the Data," Humanities 14:4 (July/August 1993): 16-19.  

 

"Reports from an Eye-Witness: Defoe's Letters," Eighteenth-Century Correspondences, ed. Alan T. McKenzie (Athens:  University of Georgia Press, 1993): 21-47.

 

"The Verse Essay, John Locke, and Defoe's Jure Divino," ELH 55 (1988): 99-124.

 

"No Defense:  Defoe in 1703," PMLA 103 (1988): 274-84.

 

"Robert Harley to Daniel Defoe:  A New Letter," Modern Language Review 83 (1988): 817-819.

 

"Women Writers and the Chains of Identity," Studies in the Novel 19 (1987): 245-62.

 

"Defoe and the Clerks of Penicuik," Modern Philology 84 (1987): 372-81.

 

"The Genesis of Roxana," The Eighteenth Century:  Theory and Interpretation 27 (1986):  211-29 (lead article in special issue on gender and genre).

 

"Esteem in the Novels by Women," Fetter'd or Free?  British Women Novelists, 1670-1815, eds. Schofield and Macheski (Athens:  Ohio University Press, 1986): 152-68.

 

"Defoe and the Geography of the Mind," The First English Novelists: Essays in Understanding, ed. J. M. Armistead (Knoxville:  University of Tennessee Press, 1985): 41-65.

 

"Defoe as Solitary Reader," Princeton Library Chronicle 46 (1985): 178-91.

 

"Jane Barker," A Dictionary of Women Writers, 1660-1800, ed. Janet Todd (Totowa, NJ:  Barnes & Noble, 1985): 38-39.

 

"Mary Davys," A Dictionary of Women Writers, 1660-1800, ed. Janet Todd (Totowa, NJ:  Barnes & Noble, 1985): 98-99.

 

"Defoe's Prodigal Sons," Studies in the Literary Imagination 15 (1982): 3-18.

 

"John Russell to Daniel Defoe:  Fifteen Unpublished Letters from Scotland ," Philological Quarterly 61 (1982): 161-77.

 

"Swift's Harley and the Nature of Biography," Biography 5 (1982): 284-96.


 

"Cross-Purposes:  Defoe's History of the Union ," CLIO 11 (1982): 165-86.

 

"Personality and Biblical Allusion in Defoe's Letters," South Atlantic Review 47 (1982): 1-20.

 

"Defoe's Lady Credit," The Huntington Library Quarterly 44 (1981): 89-100.

 

"Into All the World," ADE Bulletin 68 (1981): 17-20.

 

"Woman's Influence," Studies in the Novel 11 (1979): 3-22.

 

" John Home 's Douglas and the Theme of the Unfulfilled Life," Studies in Scottish Literature 14 (1978): 90-97.

 

"She Seeks the Springs of Caesar'--Dryden's All for Love," Enlightenment Essays 8 (1977): 3-21.

 

"Defoe's Women:  Snares and Prey," Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 5, ed. Ronald C. Rosbottom (Madison:  University of Wisconsin Press, 1976): 103-20.

 

"Squeak in the Night:  Updike's Couples" (with N. Backscheider ), (Modern Fiction Studies 20 (1974):  45-52. Reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, eds. C. Riley and P. C. Mendelson (Detroit:  Gale Research Co., Inc., 1976): 452.

 

"Introduction" and appendix to Defoe's A Short Narrative of the Life of Marlborough, Augustan Reprint Society, no. 168 (Los Angeles: Clark Library, 1974): I-xvi and 51.

 

Review Essays

 

Of P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens, A Political Biography of Daniel Defoe; John J. Richetti, The Life of Daniel Defoe; and Religious and Didactic Writings of Daniel Defoe (5 vols., multiple editors), forthcoming, Eighteenth-Century Studies.

 

Of Morris Brownell’s The Prime Minister of Taste, Kathryn King’s Jane Barker, Exile, and Maximillian E. Novak’s Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions, Eighteenth-Century Studies 36.1 (Fall 2002): 119-121.

 

“Eighteenth-Century Drama,” Year’s Work in English Studies for 1996 (with Daniel Ennis, Amy Muse, and Nancy Naugle), and for 1997 (with Diane Boyd and Daniel Ennis), Oxford :  Blackwell.

 

"Recent Studies in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature," Studies in English Literature (SEL) 31 (1991): 569-614.

 

Of P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens's The Canonisation of Defoe, Novel 24 (1990): 115-118.

 

Of The Eighteenth Century:  A Current Bibliography, n.s. 3 and 4, Modern Language Review 80 (1985): 681-84.

 

Of Laura Curtis's The Versatile Defoe and John J. Perry's introduction to Defoe's Atalantis Major, The Eighteenth-Century:  A Current Bibliography, n.s. 5 (1983): 404-406.

 

Of Paul Alkon's Defoe and Fictional Time and Peter Earle's The World of Defoe, Georgia Review (Summer 1980): 453-56.


 

Recent Reviews

 

Of Nancy Armstrong, How Novels Think, forthcoming, Scriblerian.

 

Of Dana Y. Rabin, Identity, Crime, and Legal Responsibility in Eighteenth-Century England, forthcoming, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation.

 

Of Juliette Merritt’s Beyond Spectacle, forthcoming, Eighteenth-Century Fiction.

 

Of Joseph Donohue’s introduction to The Cambridge History of British Theatre, 1660 to 1895, forthcoming, Scriblerian.

 

Of Ruth Perry’s Novel Relations, forthcoming, Scriblerian.

 

Of Christine Gerrard’s Aaron Hill: The Muses Projector, 1685-1750, Albion 36 (2004), 704-6.

 

Of Diana and Michael Preston ’s A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier:Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer, Washington Post Book World 34 (2-8 May 2004): 4.

 

Of Catherine Burrough’s Women in British Romantic Theatre: Drama, Performance, and Society, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film 30 (2003): 96-99.

 

Of George Justice and Nathan Tinker, eds. Women’s Writing and the Circulation of Ideas: Manuscript Publication in England, 1550-1800, biography 26 (2003): 734-37.

 

Of Jaqueline Pearson’s, Women’s Reading in Britain, 1750-1835, 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era 8 (2003): 377-81.

 

Of Daisuke Takahashi’s In Search of Robinson Crusoe and Tim Severin’s In Search of Robinson Crusoe, Washington Post Book World (June 30- July 6 2002): 8-9.

 

Of Jim Springer Borck, Irving N. Rothman, Manuel Schonhorn and Maximillian E. Novak’s (eds.), An Essay Upon Projects, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 12 (2001): 139-41.

 

Of  Castaway, in The Chronicle of Higher Education 48, (2 February 2001) : B4.

 

Of Katherine Armstrong’s, Defoe: Writer as Agent, Scriblerian, 33 (2001): 66-7.

 

Of Janet Todd’s (ed.), Aphra Behn Studies, Modern Philology 96 (1999): 384-87.

 

Of Ian Watt’s, Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe, Studies in the Novel 29 (1997): 262-264.

 

Of Richard Burt and John Michael Archer (eds.), Enclosure Acts: Sexuality, Property, and Culture in Early Modern England , Journal of the History of Sexuality 6 (1995): 330-34.         

 

Of Steven N. Zwicker, Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649-1689, Albion 26 (1994): 146-148.

 

Of Tom Keymer's Richardson 's Clarissa and the Eighteenth-Century Reader, Studies in the Novel 25 (1993): 483-485.

 

Of Madeleine Kahn's Narrative Transvestism, in Eighteenth-Century Fiction 5 (1992): 376-378.

 


Of Marlies Danziger and Frank Brady's Boswell:  The Great Biographer (1789-1795), Journal of English and German Philology 90 (1991): 435-438.

 

Of Brian Hill's Robert Harley, Studies in The Age of Johnson 4 (1991): 374-377.

 

Of Kristina Straub's Divided Fictions, Modern Philology 87 (1989): 93-95.

 

Of N. H. Keeble's The Literary Culture of Nonconformity, Eighteenth-Century Studies 22 (1988-89): 261-64.

 

Of Margaret Anne Doody's Frances Burney, ECCB n.s. 14. (1988): 283-84.

 

Of Ian Bell's Defoe's Fiction, Modern Language Studies 18 (1988): 201-202.

 

Other reviews in Eighteenth-Century Studies; South Atlantic Review; Georgia Review; The Eighteenth Century:  A Current Bibliography; Scriblerian; Seventeenth-Century News

 

Papers and Speeches (recent, selected)

 

“The Paradigms of Popular Culture,” University of Michigan International Symposium, Gender and Popular Culture, 1650-1750, October 2005.

 

“Shadowing Theatrical Change,” Huntington Symposium, Players, Playwrights, Playhouses, March 2005.

 

“The Sounds in the Theatre,” Modern Language Association, December 2004.

 

“Editing: Opportunity or Exploitation?” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, March 2004.

 

“Hanging On and Hanging In: Women’s Struggle to Participate in Public Sphere Debate,” Plenary Address at Daring Women of the Enlightenment Conference, February 2004.

 

“Women Poets and Enlightenment Culture,” Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, October 2002.

 

“At Our Mercy: Biographers and Their Readers,” The Boston Athenaeum, 26 April, 2001.

 

“Daniel Defoe in Scotland ,” BBC’s “Edge of the World,” 14 March 2001.

 

“Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre,” DeBartolo Lecturer, February 2001.

 

“Fashioning Novels,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, April 2000.

 

“Why We Care About Romantic Drama,” Plenary Address, Romantic Drama: A Symposium, University of Texas , April 1998.

 

“Doubt Everything?  Women Writers and Familiar Answers,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, April 1998.

 

“The Shadow of an Author, The Shadow of a Story,” Plenary Address, East Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, October 1998.

 


“‘Her Heart Became a Force of Nature’: Naming Aphra Behn,” Inauguration of Performance Theory Ph.D. Program, University of California , Davis , February 1996.

 

"Endless Aversion Rooted in the Soul," Emory University Women's Institute Series, October 1994.

 

"Bangles and Water Rights: The Diversion of the Early Novel," Kirby Lecture and plenary address, South Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, March 1993.

 

"The Cavalier Woman," Presidential Address, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, April 1993.

 

"Sex, Sin, and Ideology," plenary address, Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1991.

 

"The Self Besieg'd," Yale University Pope Bicentennial Celebration, April 1988.

 

“Robinson Crusoe,” National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” December 1986.

 

Professional Offices (selected)

 

Editorial Board, XVIII: New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century, 2001-

                        Eighteenth-Century Women: Studies in Their Works, Lives, and Culture, 1997-

 

Advisory Board, Cambridge Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 2002-

 

Advisory Editor, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2002-

  The Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1999-

  Studies in the Novel, 1998-

  Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women, 1994-

  Studies in English Literature, 1993-

              Augustan Reprint Society, 1983-                        

 

Representative to the American Council of Learned Societies, 1993-2003

 

Modern Language Association:

Member, Prize Committee for Outstanding Work of Bibliography, 2006-

Executive Committee for the Division, Comparative Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature, 1974-79

Executive Committee for the Division, Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Literature, 1979-83

Member, Steering Committee, 1980-82; Chair, 1981-82

Member, Delegate Assembly, 1976-77, 1980-82, 1986-89

 

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies:

Founding Member, Prize Committee for Editing and Translation Fellowship, 2004-

Member, Jenkins Biography Prize Committee, 1998-2001

Chair, Jenkins Biography Prize Committee, 1997-98

Past president and Executive Board member, 1993-94


President, 1992-93

Vice-president, 1990-1992

Representative to the Committee on Regional Societies, 1977-81

Member, Nominating Committee, 1978                                                              

 

Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies:

Chair, Founders' Committee

Chair of the Program Committee for inaugural meeting

Member, Program Committee, 1978-81

 

Administrative Assignments (selected)

 

At Auburn University

Chair, Oversight Committee, Faculty Development and Technology Consortium, 1993-

Member, Distinguished Professor Committee, 1997-2000, 2005-

Chair, Screening Committee for British Romanticism position, 2005-2006

Member, Selection Committee for Creative Research Awards, 2004-

Member, AU Bookstore Advisory Committee, 2004-

Member, Senate Library Committee, 2001-2003

Member, Educational Technology Advisory Council, 2001-

Member, Search Committee for Department Head, 2000-2001

Member, University Housing Committee, 1999-2002

Member, Graduate Committee, 1993-1995, 1998-2001, 2004-2005

Chair, Graduate Recruiting Committee, 1997

Member, Humanities Fellowship Committee, 1994-2000

Member, President's Task Force on Student Affairs, 1996-1997

Member, Provost’s Committee on Educational Enhancement, 1997-2000

Chair, Retention Committee, 1996-1998

Chair, Search Committee for Director of the Student Success Center

Chair, Search Committee for Coordinator of Academic Support Services

Member, University Priorities Committee