Patricia Ann Meyer Spacks (born 1929) is an American literary scholar. She is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor Emerita at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

and former President of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and of the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...

. She specializes in eighteenth-century English Literature and also writes cultural criticism on varied subjects such as

boredom In conventional usage, boredom, ennui, or tedium is an emotional and occasionally psychological state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, is listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occu ...

gossip Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling. Gossip is a topic of research in evolutionary psychology, which has found gossip to be an important means ...

, and

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

. "With remarkable breadth of reference, Spacks has written more extensively than any other feminist critic on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English narrative".

Life

Spacks was born to Norman and Lillian Talcott Meyer in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California. She received a B.A. from

Rollins College Rollins College is a private college in Winter Park, Florida. It was founded in November 1885 and has about 30 undergraduate majors and several graduate programs. It is Florida's fourth oldest post-secondary institution. History Rollins Colle ...

in 1949, an M.A. from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and a Ph.D. from the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

in 1955. From 1955 to 1978 she was married to poet

Barry Spacks Barry Bernard Spacks (February 21, 1931 – January 28, 2014), was a prize-winning poet, novelist and first List of municipal poets laureate in California#Santa Barbara, poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. Born in Philadelphia, Penns ...

. She has chaired English departments at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

, and the University of Virginia. In 1996, Spacks was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. She was the first Humanities Scholar-in-Residence at the

before becoming the Academy's president from 2001 to 2006. Spacks has earned the

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 ...

, a fellowship from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

, and an Honorary Doctorate from Rollins College. She has been the chair of the board of directors of the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and a trustee of the

National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. The center was planned under the auspi ...

Selected works

* ''Imagining a Self: Autobiography and Novel in Eighteenth-Century England'' (1976) * ''The Adolescent Idea: Myths of Youth and the Adult Imagination'' (1981) * ''Gossip'' (1985) * ''Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels'' (1990) * ''Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind'' (1995) * ''Privacy: Concealing the Eighteenth-Century Self (2003) * ''Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (2006) * ''On Rereading'' (2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spacks, Patricia Meyer Living people 1929 births University of Virginia faculty Rollins College alumni Yale University alumni University of California alumni Members of the American Philosophical Society Presidents of the Modern Language Association