Dr. Laura Fisher
Biography:
Dr. Fisher is an associate professor in the Department of English at 91福利, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American Literature and the literature and culture of cities. Her research in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. literature explores questions of race, class, gender, and self-making within and across multiple sites of urban modernity.
Fisher鈥檚 first book, Reading for Reform: The Social Work of Literature in the Progressive Era (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) offers a literary history of social reform institutions in the United States. A new book, funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, examines the largely forgotten genre of sociological fiction in U.S. literary history鈥攁 genre alternately named the 鈥渆conomic novel,鈥� the 鈥渟ocial novel,鈥� and the 鈥渞esearch novel.鈥� Her research has been published in American Literature, Journal of Modern Literature, MELUS, and Modern Language Quarterly.
In addition to her scholarly writing, Fisher writes cultural criticism on such topics as riot grrrl, popular music and culture, and contemporary literature for publications such as The Guardian, The New Inquiry, Avidly鈥擫os Angeles Review of Books, and Public Books. She has also produced a digital and public humanities project entitled City of Words, which she uses as a tool for teaching urban literatures in Toronto and beyond.
Selected Publications
Reading for Reform: The Social Work of Literature in the Progressive Era. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019
鈥淨uiet Storm: Why Juliana Hatfield鈥檚 Hey Babe roared as loud as the riot grrrls.鈥� The Guardian, March 31, 2018
鈥淐harlotte Perkins Gilman鈥檚 Novel Aesthetics.鈥� MLQ: Modern Language Quarterly 78.4 (November 2017)
鈥淚mmigration鈥檚 Daughters.鈥� Public Books, September 27, 2017
鈥淧ossible Futures and Grammatical Politics in James Baldwin鈥檚 Another Country.鈥� JML: Journal of Modern Literature 41.4 (Fall 2017)
鈥淗ead and Hands Together: Booker T. Washington鈥檚 Vocational Realism.鈥� American Literature 87.3 (December 2015)
鈥淐arrie Brownstein Gives Me a Heart Attack.鈥� Avidly鈥擫os Angeles Review of Books, December 15, 2015
鈥淪parkle, Shirley, Sparkle!鈥� The New Inquiry, March 3, 2014
鈥淢inor Feelings.鈥� The New Inquiry, July 1, 2013
鈥淲riting Immigrant Aid: The Settlement House and the Problem of Representation.鈥� MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 37.2 (Summer 2012)