Ellen Messer-Davidow
Professor
Ph.D. English, University of Cincinnati, 1984
22 Lind Hall
612-625-2071
emd@umn.edu
I have always been interested in how things function--facts and theories, texts and discourses, academic disciplines and institutions, social movements and public policies. What, for instance, are the forms of discursivity used by scholars, activists, lawmakers, the media, and the public? How are explanations of the “same” social phenomena constructed in these different arenas? How do interacting movements and institutions orchestrate change? What are the real-world impacts of action in or across these arenas? To answer questions like these, I oscillate among empirical research, theory, and practice. Practice has been an important part of my knowing about discourse and action--organizing women on campus during my graduate student days, serving on the MLA Commission on the Status of Women, chairing the Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages, convening conferences on the new knowledge, coediting a book series and journal issues, and giving media interviews.
Department Affiliations
English; American Studies; Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature; and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies
Areas of Expertise
literary, cultural, and social theory; modern/contemporary American social movements (Civil Rights, New Left, Feminist, and Conservative); the “new knowledge studies”; and certain areas of contemporary American public policy and law.
Selected Publications
Book in Progress: The Spiders’ Web: Discourses of Racial Discrimination in Higher Education.
Disciplining Feminism: From Social Activism to Academic Discourse. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002.
Knowledges: Historical and Critical Studies in Disciplinarity. Ed. Ellen Messer-Davidow, David R. Shumway, and David J. Sylvan. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
(En)Gendering Knowledge: Feminists in Academe. Ed. Joan E. Hartman and Ellen Messer-Davidow. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.
“Interdisciplinary Investigations and Cross-Sector Interventions.” Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice. Ed. Joe Parker, Mary Romero, and Ranu Samantrai. Albany: SUNY Press, forthcoming 2009.
“Studying Power/Knowledge Formations.” In The ‘Establishment’ Responds: Power and Protest During and After the Cold War. Ed. Katrin Fahlenbach, Martin Klimke, and Joachim Scharloth. Oxford and New York: Berghahn, forthcoming 2009.
“Caught in the Crunch.” Special Issue: Academic Freedom and Intellectual Activism in the Post-9/11 University. Works and Days 26.1-2 (2008).
“Why Democracy Will Be Hard To Do.” Social Text 24.1 (2006).
“Feminist Theory and Criticism: From the Movement to the Academy.” Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism and Theory. Ed. Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
“Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia: From Discourse and Dollars to Dominance.” South Atlantic Quarterly 98.1 (2001).
“The Struggle for the Academy.” Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Ed. Mary Kupiac Cayton and Peter W. Willliams. 3 vols. New York: Scribner’s, 2001. Vol. 2.
Graduate Courses
Contemporary Theory--Literary, Cultural, Social
Reading Foucault
Reading Marxisms
Globalization 101--Community and Conglomeration
Undergraduate Courses
African Americans and Civil Rights: Reading Between and Beyond the Lines
Consumer Culture
Contemporary Critical Theory
Women and Public Policy