Rachel M. Brownstein (born 1937) is an American feminist literary critic, author, and academic.

Early life

Rachel M. Brownstein was born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, was graduated from

Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a public academic magnet secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered and funded by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and no t ...

and

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

, and received her PhD in English from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Academic career

Brownstein is an emeritus professor of English at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

and the

CUNY Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University ...

. She is known for her contributions to the field of

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

and her work on the novel, particularly the 18th- and 19th-century British novel. Her research and writing have focused on various aspects of literature, including narrative theory, women writers, and the intersections of literature and culture. She is the author of four books, ''Becoming a Heroine: Reading about Women in Novels''; ''Tragic Muse: Rachel of the Comédie-Française''; ''Why Jane Austen?''; and ''American Born: an Immigrant's Story, a Daughter's Memoir''. She was a MacDowell Foundation fellow (1980) and spent a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Bellagio, Italy (1996). She was a fellow at the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University (2016–2017). In 1993, she received the George Freedley Award from the Theatre Library Association for ''Tragic Muse'' and it was listed as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. She is considered a foundational feminist literary critic and a leading scholar of

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

's works.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brownstein, Rachel M. Living people American academics 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American writers 21st-century American women writers 1937 births Writers from Queens, New York American feminist writers Barnard College alumni Hunter College alumni MacDowell Colony fellows Brooklyn College faculty Yale University alumni Women literary critics