Josephine Donovan (born 1941) is an American scholar of

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

who is a

professor emerita ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

of English in the Department of English at the

University of Maine, Orono The University of Maine (UMaine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine, United States. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universitie ...

. Her research and expertise has covered

feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or Philosophy, philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's Gender role, social roles, experiences, intere ...

feminist criticism Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. This school of thought seeks to an ...

animal ethics Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, an ...

, and both

early modern The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

and American (particularly

19th century The 19th century began on 1 January 1801 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 (MCM). It was the 9th century of the 2nd millennium. It was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was Abolitionism, ...

) literature with a special focus on American writer Sarah Orne Jewett and the local colorists. She recently extended her study of local color literature to the European tradition. Along with Marti Kheel, Carol J. Adams, and others, Donovan introduced ecofeminist care theory, rooted in cultural feminism, to the field of animal ethics. Her published corpus includes ten books, five edited books, over fifty articles, and seven short stories.

Life and career

Donovan was born in

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

in 1941, and was, with her mother, evacuated shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her father, a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

, remained; in 1942, he was captured by the Japanese. Donovan subsequently edited and published his memoirs.Josephine Donovan
. University of Maine. Accessed on 11 August 2016. Majoring in history, she studied at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

, Pennsylvania, graduating, cum laude, in 1962. Subsequently, she worked in journalism, as a

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts record keeping as well as general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include Records managem ...

on the copy desks at ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' and ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' and as a reporter for a small New York newspaper. Concurrent with her work, she studied

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. She went on to study at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

, reading for an MA (graduating 1967) and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

(graduating 1971), both in

. She subsequently held positions at the University of Kentucky (Honors Program), the University of New Hampshire (as the first coordinator of the Women's Studies Program), and visiting professor positions at George Washington University and the University of Tulsa.Donovan, Josephine (1984). "Toward a Women's Poetics". ''Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature'' 3 (1/2): 98-110. ), as well as working as a copy editor for G. K. Hall & Co. She took early retirement from her position of professor of English at the University of Maine to allow more time for both research and writing, and is currently a professor emerita.

Select bibliography

Books

*''Sarah Orne Jewett''. New York: Ungar, 1980. (Revised edition released by Cybereditions in 2001.) *''New England Local Color Literature: A Women's Tradition''. New York: Ungar, 1983. *''Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions''. New York: Ungar, 1985. (Second edition released by Continuum in 1992, third edition released by Continuum in 2000, and fourth edition released by Bloomsbury in 2012.) *''After the Fall: The Demeter-Persephone Myth in Wharton, Cather and Glasgow''. University Park, PA:

Pennsylvania State University Press The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. Established in 1956, it is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University ...

, 1989. *''Gnosticism in Modern Literature: A Study of Selected Works of Camus, Sartre, Hesse, and Kafka''. New York:

Garland A garland is a decorative braid, knot or wreath of flowers, leaves, or other material. Garlands can be worn on the head or around the neck, hung on an inanimate object, or laid in a place of cultural or religious importance. In contemporary times ...

, 1990. *''Uncle Tom's Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love''. Boston:

Twayne Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research a ...

, 1991. (Revised edition released by Cybereditions, 2001.) *''Women and the Rise of the Novel, 1405-1726''. New York:

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan in New York City. It is headquartered in the Equitable Building (New York City), Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishe ...

, 1999. (Revised and expanded second edition released by

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains offi ...

in 2013.) *''European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres''. New York:

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

, 2010. *''The Aesthetics of Care. On the Literary Treatment of Animals.'' New York, London, Oxford: Bloomsbury, 2016. *''The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America. Amherst/Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2020.'' *''Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story''. Michigan State University Press, 2022.

Edited works

*''Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory''. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1975. (Second edition released in 1989.) *''Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations''. Durham, N.C.:

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...

, 1995. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams). *''Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethic for the Treatment of Animals''. New York: Continuum, 1996. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams). *''P. O. W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II''. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1998. (By William N. Donovan). *''The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader''. New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

, 2007. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams).

Life and career

Select bibliography

Books

Edited works

See also

References

Further reading