Mary Poovey is Samuel Rudin University Professor of the Humanities, Professor of English, and Director of the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge at New York University. She received her BA in English from Oberlin College in 1972 and her MA and PhD in English from the University of Virginia in 1973 and 1976 respectively. Her primary scholarly work focuses on nineteenth-century British literature, history, and culture, although she has also published on eighteenth-century British literature and culture, the history of literary criticism, feminist theory, and economic history. Her two most recent books, A History of the Modern Fact and Genres of the Credit Economy, examine the emergence of the modern disciplines. In them, she argues that literary study acquired the rudiments of its modern form through a process of generic differentiation that distinguished between modes of writing about value. Her current work focuses on financial crises, both past and present. Her other books include The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (1984), Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (1989), and Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation, 1830-1864 (1995). (Biography from http://english.fas.nyu.edu/object/marypoovey.html)
This collection is comprised of the professional papers of Mary Poovey, the Samuel Rudin University Professor of the Humanities, Professor of English, and Director of the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge at New York University. Poovey’s files include drafts of manuscripts and other writings, course materials, and related files. This collection highlights Poovey’s academic career and research interests in British literature, history and culture, literary criticism, feminist theory, and economic history.
The Mary Poovey papers are arranged into six series.
Series 1, Writings and related, 1976-1997, contains drafts, articles published by Poovey, and reviews about Poovey’s published works. The files are arranged alphabetically by project title in subseries 1 and 2 and include “A Brief History of Modern Abstraction,” “Figures of Arithmetic, Figures of Speech,” and “The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Marry Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelly, and Jane Austin.” Subseries 3 is arranged by record type. Titles of articles are written in quotation marks. Original folder titles are listed after a colon also in quotation marks while the processor created the remaining folder titles.
Series 2, Course materials, 1987-2000, contains lectures, notes, and syllabi. Files are arranged alphabetically by course or lecture title and include “Domesticity and Class Formation: Chadwick’s 1842 ‘Sanitary Report,’” “Probability and Realism in the Novel,” and “The Woman Question in Victorian literature.” Titles of the course or lecture are written in quotation marks. Original folder titles are written after a colon in quotation marks while the remaining folder titles were created by the processor.
Series 3, Conference materials, 2000, contains a pamphlet, correspondence, agenda, notes, and lecture drafts for the Future of the City of Intellect Conference at the University of California at Riverside in February 2000. The processor created the folder title.
Series 4, Research materials, 1981-1987, contains a book review on the "modern body," a 1981 issue of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politicsphotocopy, and the rearch article, “Female Rights Vindicated.” Files are arranged alphabetically according to record type, while the processor created the folder titles.
Series 5, Electronic records, n.d., contains one thumb drive. Files include course notes, power point presentations for courses, lecture notes, and other course related material. The processor created the folder title.
Series 6, Restricted materials, 1982-1998, containes correspondence, hypnosis drawings, medical reports, and therapy journals documenting Poovey's personal life and physical and mental health. Files in this series are arranged alphabetically by record type according to folder titles created by Poovey. This series is closed until January 1, 2041.
Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. Researchers should note that compliance with copyright law is their responsibility. Researchers must determine the owners of the literary rights and obtain any necessary permissions from them.
There are no restrictions on access, except for Series 6, Restricted materials, which is closed until January 1, 2041. 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.
Mary Poovey papers, Ms.2017.001, Feminist Theory Archive, Brown University Library.
The collection is arranged in 6 series.
Gift of Mary Poovey in 2017.