Mary Longstaff Jacobus, (born 4 May 1944) is a British literary scholar.

Career

Born on 4 May 1944 to Marcus and Diana ( Longstaff) Jacobus, Jacobus attended Oxford High School before going up to

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The ...

(LMH), to read English; she graduated in 1965 and then completed her

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in 1970."Jacobus, Prof. Mary Longstaff"
''Who's Who'' (Oxford University Press, December 2017). Retrieved 2 May 2018. The last two years of her doctorate were spent as Randall McIver

Junior Research Fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a p ...

at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; after a year lecturing at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

, she returned to Oxford as a Fellow and Tutor in English at LMH and, from 1972, as a Common University Fund lecturer. In 1980, she moved to

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

to take up the post of associate professor of English, and two years later she was promoted to a full professorship. From 1989 to 2000, Jacobus was Cornell's John Wendell Anderson Professor of English and Women's Studies. She then became Grace 2 Professor of English in the Faculty of English,

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and took up a Professorial fellowship at Churchill College. From 2006 until 2011, she was Director of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge University. Jacobus retired from Cambridge University in 2011, returning to Cornell University as M. H. Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2011–12. She continues to hold an emerita professorship at Cambridge and Cornell. From 2009 to 2015 she served on the Academic Committee of Norway's Holberg International Memorial Prize, chairing it from 2012 to 2015.

Honours

In 2009, Jacobus was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

(FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...

for the humanities and social sciences."Professor Mary Jacobus"
''British Academy''. Retrieved 2 May 2018. She has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEH, and the Arts Humanities Research Council (UK). She was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in 2012 for "services to literary scholarship"."Mary Jacobus awarded CBE"
''University of Cambridge: Faculty of English'', 18 June 2012. Retrieved 2 May 2018. She is an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and Churchill College, Cambridge.

Selected publications

* ''Tradition and Experiment in Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads (1798)'' (Clarendon Press, 1976). * (Editor) ''Women Writing and Women Writing About Women'' (Croon Helm, 1979). * ''Reading Woman: Essays in Feminist Criticism'' (Methuen, 1986). * (Co-editor with Evelyn Fox Keller and Sally Shuttleworth) ''Body/Politics: Women and the Discourse of Science'' (Routledge, 1989). * ''Romanticism, Writing and Sexual Difference: Essays on The Prelude'' (Clarendon Press, 1989) * ''First Things: the Maternal Imaginary in Literature, Art and Psychoanalysis'' (Routledge, 1995). * ''Psychoanalysis and the Scene of Reading'' (Oxford University Press, 1999). * ''The Poetics of Psychoanalysis: In the Wake of Klein'' (Oxford University Press, 2005). * ''Romantic Things: A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud'' (Chicago University Press, 2012). * ''Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint'' (Princeton University Press, 2016). * ''On Belonging and Not Belonging: Translation, Migration, Displacement'' (Princeton University Press, 2022).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobus, Mary 1944 births Living people British literary scholars Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Fellows of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Cornell University faculty Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Commanders of the Order of the British Empire