Professional Bio
Bonnie Carr O’Neill (B.A. Hamilton College, M.A. and Ph.D. Washington University in St. Louis) teaches American literature before 1900. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century American literature and culture. Her current book project, They Are the Age: Literary Celebrity and Public Life in America, 1835-1895, studies the formation of literary celebrity in the nineteenth-century U.S., its effects on authors and their works, and its uses and misuses for the public. Dr. O’Neill has published articles and presented papers on Emerson, Whitman, Fanny Fern, and Frederick Douglass. Her teaching interests include American women writers, the history of authorship, American Romanticism, and cultural studies.
Education
BA, 1995, Hamilton College
MA, 1997, Washington University in St. Louis
Ph. D., 2003, Washington University in St. Louis
Teaching Interests
Literary celebrity and the history of authorship, early American literature, nineteenth-century American literature, American women writers, American culture studies
Courses
- American Life Writing (before the Civil War)
- “Damned Mob of Scribbling Women”: Best-Selling Novels by American Women Writers, 1850-1870
- EN 2243: American Literature I
- EN 3414: Advanced Composition
- EN 6/4903: American Literature 1800-1860
- EN 8553: Studies in American Literature to the Civil War (graduate seminar); Special topic: The Transcendentalists
Publications:
Book
They Are the Age: Literary Celebrity and Public Life in America, 1835-1895 (in progress)
Book and Journal Articles
"The Personal Public Sphere of Whitman's 1840s Journalism," _PMLA_ (March, 2011).
“‘Does such a being exist?’: Olive Branch Readers Respond to Fanny Fern.” Correspondences: Essays on the History, Theory, and Practice of U.S. Letters, 1620-1860. Ed. Sharon M. Harris and Theresa Strouth Gaul. London: Ashgate, 2009.
“‘The best of me is there’: Emerson as Lecturer and Celebrity,” American Literature 80 (4) [December, 2008]: 739-767.
“Pastoral for the Flaneur? Whitman’s Legacy of Love and the Challenge of Public Space,” Mickle Street Review 17, 18 (Fall, 2005): Special Issue: Whitman and Place. <www.micklestreet.rutgers.edu>
Professional Affiliations and Service
Advisory Board, Ralph Waldo Emerson Society
Member, Society for the Study of American Woman Writers
Member, Modern Language Association
Member, American Studies Association
