Felicity Nussbaum was born in 1944. She earned her BA from Austin College and her MA and PhD from Indiana University. She is renowned for her work on gender, life writing, theater and performance, disability, race, empire, and globalism in the long eighteenth century. Nussbaum joined the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of English in 1996. Nussbaum has also taught at Syracuse University and Indiana University, South Bend. She has published most recently an essay on 18th-century tragedy in PMLA, and her current projects include a book on Hester Thrale Piozzi, a prolific Bluestocking; essays on blackness, slavery and the Orient; and on Phebe Gibbes, a colonial novelist.
She has been awarded numerous honors, including the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award with Distinction in Graduate Teaching, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Andrew Mellon Fellowship at the Huntington Library, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. She has also held a Marta Sutton Weeks Fellowship at the Stanford Humanities Center, and a Rockefeller Humanist-in-Residence Fellow at the Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University.
Nussbaum is the author most recently of The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge University Press), and editor of The Global Eighteenth Century (Johns Hopkins University Press). In addition, she has published Torrid Zones: Maternity, Sexuality, and Empire in Eighteenth-Century Narratives (Johns Hopkins University Press); The Autobiographical Subject: Gender and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century England (Johns Hopkins University Press), co-recipient of the Gottschalk Prize for the best book in its field for 1989; and The Brink of all We Hate: Satires on Women, 1660-1750 (University Press of Kentucky). As co-editor of The New Eighteenth Century: Theory/Politics/English Literature (Methuen) with Laura Brown, she was instrumental in integrating theoretical work into eighteenth-century studies. With Helen Deutsch she has edited Defects: Engendering the Modern Body, an anthology of essays in the Corporealities series from the University of Michigan Press.
Nussbaum teaches courses in eighteenth-century novel and drama, cultural studies, and autobiography. Among her recent graduate seminars are "Johnson, Boswell, and the Bluestockings," "Eighteenth-Century Women Novelists," "The Literature of Abolition and Empire, 1688-1820," and "The Oriental Tale."
This collection consists of the personal and professional papers of Felicity Nussbaum, Distinguished Research Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Nussbaum's research focuses on British literature (1660-1800), postcolonial and Anglophone studies, and gender studies. Materials in this collection include grant materials, tenure materials, correspondence, course syllabi, and draft writings, which date from 1969 to 2020.
Series 1, PERSONAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL, 1969 – 2020, includes articles about Nussbaum, handwritten journal pages, and photographs. Also included are Nussbaum's advertisements for an in-home caregiver for her son. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type.
Series 2, CAREER DEVELOPMENT, 1970 – 2016, includes grant materials, teaching evaluations and tenure dossiers highlighting Nussbaum's activities during a given academic year, and letters of recommendation for Nussbaum to receive tenure. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type.
Series 3, CORRESPONDENCE, 1971 – 2011, contains correspondence regarding various topics such as job opportunities, research, and invitations to participate in projects. Notable correspondence is with the poet and author, Mary Karr (#1.40). This series is arranged chronologically.
Series 4, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM REFORM FILES, 1971 – 1998, includes correspondence, memoranda, meeting minutes, position papers, and course descriptions, regarding revision of the Syracuse University English department curriculum. A controversial initiative aimed at integrating deconstructionist paradigms into the curriculum, this material documents the positions of Nussbaum and other notable scholars such as Jean Howard, Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, and Donald Morton on all sides of the debate. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type.
Series 5, TEACHING, 1970 – 2018, includes bibliographies, exam questions, and course syllabi. Courses include "Autobiography and Feminist Theory," "Eighteenth Century Women's Writing," "Interdisciplinary Analysis of Women's Roles," and "New Approaches to Tragedy." This series is arranged alphabetically by record type then by date.
Series 6, WRITINGS AND RELATED, 1970 – 2019, includes correspondence, drafts, reader reports, and reviews of works by Nussbaum. Titles include "Defect: Engendering the Modern Body," "New Eighteenth Century," and "Rival Queens: Actresses and Performance in the British Theater, 1700-1780." This series is arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 7, RESEARCH, 1970 – 2015, includes clippings, data, and handwritten notes, on topics such as "History of the ASECS Women's Caucus," "Satires on Women," and "Women's Equality." This series is arranged by record type.
Series 8, ELECTRONIC RECORDS, 1976 – 2007, includes audio tapes and CD-Rs. Files include draft writings and photos. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type then by title written on the carrier.
All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the John Hay Library are requested to complete a Notice of Intent to Publish, prior to reproducing, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Felicity Nussbaum papers, MS.2020.005, Feminist Theory Archive, Brown University Library.
This collection is arranged into 8 series.
There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Gift of Felicity Nussbaum beginning in 2019.