Melissa Purdue, Ph.D.

Education

• Ph.D. in English from the University of Kentucky
• M.A. in English from Illinois State University
• B.A. in English and Religion from the University of Iowa

Biography

Purdue has published New Woman Writers, Authority, and the Body (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) with Stacey Floyd and a critical edition of Rosa Praed’s Fugitive Anne: A Romance of the Unexplored Bush (Valancourt, 2011). She has also published articles in various journals like The Latchkey: Journal of New Woman Studies, Victoriographies, and The Wilkie Collins Journal, and book collections. Her current research focuses on late 19th-century supernatural fiction and eco-gothic literature. She is editor of the journal Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies and is a board member for the British Women Writers Association. Purdue’s teaching specialties include 18th, 19th, and early 20th-century British literature, Gender Studies, Gothic literature, environmental humanities, and human-animal studies.

Purdue is a co-advisor for both the minor in Environmental Humanities and the minor in Human-Animal Studies if you have questions about either degree.

Recent Publications

• “‘Embowered in a mass of vegetation’: Confinement and Predatory Plants in Fin de Siecle Fiction." Victoriographies, vol. 13, no. 1, March 2023, pp. 42-59.
• “Clemence Housman’s The Were-Wolf: A Cautionary Tale for the Progressive New Woman.” Epilogue, The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman, Mexico City, MX, Perla Ediciones, 2022.
• “Netta Syrett.” The Latchkey: Journal of New Woman Studies, vol. XI (Summer 2022).
• “‘That tree gives me the creeps!’: Tales of Vampiric Plants.” Journal of Victorian Culture Online, 28 July 2022.
• “Anna Kingsford.” Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing, edited by Lesa Scholl, 6 April 2022. 
• “Anna Kingsford’s Spiritual Thunderbolt.” Journal of Victorian Culture Online, 13 Jan. 2022.
• “The Transformation of Victorian Monsters: Wilkie Collins’ Heart and Science and Gail Carriger’s Neo-Victorian ‘Parasol Protectorate’ Series.’” The Wilkie Collins Journal, Volume 18, 2021.
• "‘His Eyes Commanded Me to Come to Him’: Desire and Mesmerism in Rhoda Broughton’s ‘The Man with the Nose.’” Reassessing Women’s Writing of the 1860s and 1870s, edited by Carolyn Oulton & Adrienne Gavin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 183-193.

RECENT COURSES TAUGHT

•  ENG 110: Introduction to Literature  
• ENG 275W: Introduction to Literary Studies 
• ENG 316: Gothic Literature 
• ENG 319: Animals and Literature
•  ENG 322: Topics in British Literature- Detective Fiction  
• ENG 317: Literature & the Environment  
• ENG 322: Topics in British Literature-Literature & the Environment
• ENG 322: Topics in British Literature-Monsters and the Monstrous 
• ENG 403/503: The Bronte Sisters 
• ENG 606: Graduate Seminar in British Literary History and Criticism 

• ENG 609: Graduate Seminar in British Literature from 1800: British Modernism

• ENG 609: Graduate Seminar in British Literature from 1800: Victorian Visual Art & Literature 
• ENG 609: Graduate Seminar in British Literature from 1800: Gothic Literature
• ENG 612: Graduate Seminar in Gender and Literature: The British Fin de Siècle
• ENG 651: Introduction to Graduate Studies 
• ENG 654: Teaching Literature at the College Level
• ENG 671: Literary Theory - Ecocriticism

• Editor of Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies Journal: www.ncgsjournal.com