Faculty

Harriet Linkin

Harriet Linkin
Professor

Email:
hlinkin@nmsu.edu

Office Address:
New Mexico State University
Department of English
P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3E
Las Cruces, NM 88003

Phone:
(575) 646-2240

Fax:
(575) 646-7725

Education

PhD in English Language and Literature (1985), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
MA in English Language and Literature (1981), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
BA in English (1979), Queens College, City University of New York, NY

Biographical Statement
Harriet Kramer Linkin received her B.A. in English summa cum laude from Queens College, City University of New York in 1979, her M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan in 1981, and her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan in 1985. She joined the faculty at New Mexico State University in 1986 as an Assistant Professor of Nineteenth-Century British Literature, was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1993, and promoted to Professor in 2000. She served as the English Department Undergraduate Adviser from 1987-96, the Director of Graduate Studies from 1998-02, Director of Undergraduate Studies from 2002-04, and Department Head from 2004-08. She received the Patricia Christmore Junior Faculty Award in 1989, the El Paso Natural Gas Faculty Achievement Award in 1996, and the University Research Council Distinguished Career Award in 2008.

Teaching Emphases and Research Interests

Mary Tighe

British Romanticism
Romantic Women Poets
William Blake
Mary Tighe
Gothic Literature
18th-, 19th- and 20th-Century Women Writers
Gender and Language

During the past decade my research has focused on the work of Romantic-era women poets, with particular emphasis on the poetry of Mary Tighe (1772-1810), perhaps still best known for her influence on Keats (although I hope I have been changing that). I have co-edited two essay collections that speak to the value of reading and teaching the writings of once-neglected or forgotten Romantic-era women poets, Approaches to Teaching Women Poets of the British Romantic Period (1997) and Romanticism and Women Poets: Opening the Doors of Reception (1999) , and the first scholarly edition of Tighe’s poetry and journals, The Collected Poems and Journals of Mary Tighe (2005). In addition to my work on Tighe and other Romantic-era women poets, my publications explore how we are teaching Romanticism, feminist readings of canonical Romantic poets (especially Blake), and feminist approaches to nineteenth- and twentieth-century women writers, gender and language theory, and stylistics.

Courses Commonly Taught
Graduate/Senior Seminars:

The Romantic Period
Gothic Romanticism
William Blake
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Trail of the Vampire
19th-Century Women's Poetry
Gender and Language

Undergraduate English Courses:

Women Writers
Literary Criticism
Survey of English Literature II

Honors Program Courses:

The Gothic Imagination
Multicultural Contemporary Women's Literature

Selected Publications
“William Blake and Romantic Women Poets: ‘Then what have I to do with thee?’” In Women Read William Blake: “Opposition is true Friendship.” Ed. Helen P. Bruder. London: Palgave, 2006.

“Mary Tighe.” In The Dictionary of Irish Biography. Ed. James McGuire. 6 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

“More than Psyche: the Sonnets of Mary Tighe.” European Romantic Review 13:4 (December 2002): 365-78.

“Skirting around the Sex in Mary Tighe’s Psyche.” Studies in English Literature 42:4 (Autumn 2002): 731-52.

"How It Is: Teaching Women's Poetry in British Romanticism Courses." Pedagogy 1.1 (2000): 91-115.

Romanticism and Women Poets: Opening the Doors of Reception. Co-edited with Stephen C. Behrendt. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1999. [with essay on "Recuperating Romanticism in Mary Tighe's Psyche."]

"Transfigured Maternity in Blake's Songs of Innocence: Inverting the 'Maternity Plot' in 'A Dream.'" Blake, Politics and History. Edited by Jackie DiSalvo, George Anthony Rosso Jr. and Christopher Z. Hobson. New York: Garland Press, 1998.

Approaches to Teaching British Women Poets of the Romantic Period. Co-edited with Stephen C. Behrendt. New York: Modern Language Association Press, 1997. [with essay on "Teaching the Poetry of Mary Tighe: Psyche, Beauty, and the Romantic Object."]

"Romantic Aesthetics in Mary Tighe and Letitia Landon: How Women Poets Recuperate the Gaze." European Romantic Review 7:2 (1997): 159-88.

"Romanticism and Mary Tighe's Psyche: Peering at the Hem of Her Blue Stockings." Studies in Romanticism 35 (1996): 55-72.

"Taking Stock of the British Romantics Marketplace: Teaching New Canons through New Editions." Nineteenth Century Contexts 18 (1995): 111-23.

"'Call the Roller of Big Cigars': Smoking Out the Patriarchy in The Awakening." Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 11 (1994): 130-42.

"Isn't It Romantic: Carter's Bloody Revision of the Romantic Aesthetic in 'The Erl-King.'" Contemporary Literature 35 (1994): 305-23. Reprinted in Critical Essays on Angela Carter. Ed. Lindsey Tucker. New York: G. K. Hall, 1998. 119-33.

"Shelley's Power as Perceiver." European Romantic Review 4:2 (Winter1994): 151-62.

"Shelley's Power as Perceiver." European Romantic Review 4 (1994): 151-62.

"Toward a Theory of Gendered Reading." Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy 30 (Fall 1993): 1-25. Reprinted in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 146. Detroit: Gale, 2004.

"The Current Canon in British Romantics Studies." College English 53 (1991): 548-70.

"Revisioning Blake's Oothoon." Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 23 (1990): 184-94.

Professional Statement
I walked into my first classroom as a teacher in 1980, and despite my intense fear, I knew then, as I know now, that having the opportunity to teach is a great gift. Although teaching is hard work that is not well compensated, and the hours and days we spend preparing for classes often pass uncredited, there is no other work that could be as satisfying for me, as I have the chance to spend every day reading, writing, and talking about literature.