Terry Castle (born October 18, 1953) is an American literary scholar. Once described by

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

as "the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today," she has published eight books, including the anthology ''The Literature of Lesbianism'', which won the Lambda Literary Editor's Choice Award. She writes on topics ranging from 18th-century ghost stories to

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

-era lesbianism to the so-called "photographic fringe." The daughter of British parents, Castle was born in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

and lived in England and

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

as a child. She attended the University of Puget Sound and graduated in 1975 with a B.A. in English. She went on to attend the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

to get her Ph.D. in English. A longtime resident of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, Castle is currently Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Her wife is Blakey Vermeule, also a professor at Stanford. Starting around 2000, Castle increasingly began to write more widely and on personal topics beyond her academic career, writing that "having labored in the dusty groves of academe for over twenty years, I felt—as a new millennium unfolded—a desire to write more directly and personally than had previously been the case." Her essays appear frequently in the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Book ...

,'' the ''

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

,'' and the '' New Republic.''

Bibliography

* ''Clarissa's Ciphers: Meaning and Disruption in Richardson's 'Clarissa (1982) * ''Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fiction'' (1986) * ''The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture'' (1993) * ''The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny'' (1995) * ''Noël Coward and Radclyffe Hall: Kindred Spirits'' (1996) * ''Boss Ladies, Watch Out! Essays on Women, Sex, and Writing'' (2002) * ''Courage, Mon Amie'' (2002) * ''The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology From Ariosto to Stonewall'' (2003) * ''The Professor and Other Writings'' (2010) (Republished as ''The Professor: A Sentimental Education''. ).

References

External links

Terry Castle's websiteTerry Castle's blogTerry Castle Interviewed on "The 7th Avenue Project" Radio Show
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Travels with My Mom
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Castle, Terry Living people Stanford University Department of English faculty 1953 births University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni University of Puget Sound alumni American lesbian writers Vermeule family American LGBTQ academics American people of British descent People from San Diego LGBTQ people from California