Penelope Billings Reed Doob (August 13, 1943 — March 11, 2017) was an American-born Canadian medievalist, dance scholar, and medical researcher. She was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1974 for her research on medieval literature.

Early life

Penelope Billings Reed was born in

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

in 1943, the daughter of Thomas Lloyd Reed (an art history professor) and Betsy Mook Reed. She attended the Lincoln School in Providence. She studied English literature at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

as an undergraduate, but also considered a medical career; she was awarded a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Medical Research Fellowship in 1964. She completed doctoral studies in 1969 at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, with a dissertation that became her first book, ''Nebuchadnezzar's Children: Conventions of Madness in Medieval Literature'' (1974).

Career

Doob was a professor of dance, English literature, and women's studies at

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

. She was chair of the dance department at York from 2001 to 2006, and served as associate principal of the university's Glendon College. Later books by Doob included ''The Idea of the Labyrinth from the Classical Period through the Middle Ages'' (1990); and, with Charlotte Morse and Marjorie Woods, ''The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies''. She collaborated with dancer

Karen Kain Karen Alexandria Kain (born March 28, 1951) is a Canadian former ballet dancer, and was the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada from 2005 - 2021. Early training and childhood Kain's mother enrolled her daughter in ballet training ...

on writing her memoir, ''Movement Never Lies'' (1994). She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974 for her research on medieval English literature. Doob conducted interviews on dance for

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

from 1976 to 1979, and wrote program notes for the

National Ballet of Canada The National Ballet of Canada is a Canadian ballet company that was founded in 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, with Celia Franca as the first artistic director. A company of 70 dancers with its own orchestra, the National Ballet has been led since 2022 ...

. She was also a founding president of Reed McFadden, a medical research company, and was a research associate at

Toronto Western Hospital The Toronto Western Hospital (TWH) is a major research and teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is part of the University Health Network (UHN). It has 256 beds, with 46,000 visits to its emergency department annually. It is known for ...

. She served on the board of Camp Pemigewassett in New Hampshire, founded by her grandfather. She helped to produce the camp's annual

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...

show. She served on the board of directors for the Actors' Fund of Canada (1993-2006) and was active with the World Dance Alliance (2001-2009).

Personal life

Penelope Reed married twice. She married

Anthony Doob Anthony Newcomb Doob (born 1943) is a Canadian criminologist and professor emeritus of criminology at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies of the University of Toronto. Early life and education Doob is the son of Leonard W. Doob, a ...

, a criminologist, in 1966, and law professor Graham Parker in 1985. Both marriages ended in divorce. Penelope Reed Doob retired from York University in 2014 and died in 2017, after many years with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

. She was 73 years old. Flags at York University were lowered to half-mast at news of her death."Passings: Professor Emerita Penelope Reed Doob"
York University ''yFile'' (March 15, 2017).

References

External links

Penelop Doob archives
at the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University Libraries,

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doob, Penelope Reed 1943 births 2017 deaths People from Providence, Rhode Island Dance historians Academic staff of York University Harvard College alumni American women writers Stanford University alumni Lincoln School (Providence, Rhode Island) alumni American women academics 21st-century American women Academic staff of Glendon College American women medievalists