Priscilla Wald (born 1958) is Professor of English and Women's Studies at Duke University and the author of ''Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form'' (1995) and ''Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative'' (2008). She has published widely on the intersections of science, medicine, law, and literature. She is currently at work on a book-length study entitled ''Human Being After Genocide'', which chronicles the challenge to conceptions of human being that emerged from scientific and technological innovation in the wake of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, as well as a series of essays that explore the impact of genomics on current thinking about categories of social, biological and political belonging and on the narrative of human history. Wald is the current editor of American Literature. She served as the president of th
American Studies Association (ASA)
from 2011-2012. Wald received her B.A. in English from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

(class of 1980) and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from

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 Manhatt ...

(1981, 1987). She is married to the poet and literary critic

Joseph Donahue Joseph Donahue (born 1954) is an American poet, critic, and editor. Born in Dallas, Texas and growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, Donahue attended Dartmouth College for his undergraduate degree and went on to Columbia University and lived for ma ...

Works

''Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form'' (Duke University Press, 1995).
''Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative'' (Duke University Press, 2008).

External links

Duke University faculty American literary critics American women literary critics Living people Yale College alumni 1958 births {{US-English-academic-bio-stub