Josephine Donovan (born 1941) is an American scholar of
comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
who is a
professor emerita
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
of
English in the Department of English at the
University of Maine, Orono. Her research and expertise has covered
feminist theory
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and femi ...
,
feminist criticism,
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, ...
, and both
early modern and
American (particularly
19th century
The 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 ( MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 ( MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium.
The 19th century was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolis ...
) 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 ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...
in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
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 of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, c ...
, 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: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United Sta ...
, Pennsylvania, graduating, cum laude, in 1962. Subsequently, she worked in journalism, as a
clerk
A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...
on the
copy desks at ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' and ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' 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 outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literar ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
. She went on to study at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...
, reading for an
MA (graduating 1967) and a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
(graduating 1971), both in
comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
. 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
Ungar is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Benjamin (Benji) Ungar (1986–), an American Épée fencer
* David Ungar, an American engineer
* Hermann Ungar (1893–1929), a Bohemian writer of German language and an officer in t ...
, 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, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State Uni ...
, 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.
Etymology
From the ...
, 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, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007.
The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale Gr ...
, 1991. (Revised edition released by Cybereditions, 2001.)
*''Women and the Rise of the Novel, 1405-1726''. New York:
St. Martin's Press, 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 off ...
in 2013.)
*''European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres''. New York:
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions.
Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...
, 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 Du ...
, 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, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fi ...
, 2007. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams).
See also
*
List of vegans
References
Further reading
*Jane Gallop, "An Idea Presented before Its Time." In ''Around 1981: Academic Feminist Literary Theory'' (1992), chap. 8.
*Mary M. Dalton. "Power, Patterns, and the Gendered Narrative." ''Journal of Film and Video'' 65, no. 1-2 (2013).
*Kelly M. Robbins. ''Appeals for Compassion: The Uses of Anthropomorphism and Sentimentality in Animal Advocacy Campaigns''. Ph.D. diss. Drew University, 2016.
*Carlo Alvero. "Josephine Donovan and Virtue Ethics." In ''Veganism Is A Virtue''. Ph.D. diss. New School, 2017.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donovan, Josephine
1941 births
Living people
American animal rights scholars
American copy editors
American ethicists
American feminist writers
American literary historians
American women academics
American women historians
American women journalists
American literary theorists
Animal ethicists
Bryn Mawr College alumni
Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
Comparative literature academics
Ecofeminists
Feminist theorists
George Washington University faculty
People from Manila
Philosophers from Maine
University of Maine faculty
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
Women literary historians