Judith Giblin James

Associate Professor

Office: 505 Humanities Office Building
(803) 777-5063
judith.james@sc.edu

Education

Ph.D., University of North Carolina, 1984

Specialization Areas

• American Fiction
• History of the Book and Authorship
• Gender Studies

Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

• ENGL 287: American Literature
• ENGL 437: Women Writers
• ENGL 700: Introduction to Graduate Studies in English
• ENGL 738: American Women Writers
• ENGL 750: American Novel to the Civil War
• ENGL 841: Women Writers in the Literary Marketplace
• ENGL 842: 20th-Century American Women Novelists
  

Current Research Projects

"Dramatizing Difference: The American Social Novel on Stage." A study of dramatic adaptations by DuBose Heyward, Richard Wright, Lillian Smith, and Carson McCullers, exploring the representation of cultural and generic difference traceable in documentary evidence such as manuscript drafts, letters, production notes, tryout records, and memoirs.

"Intimate Fictions: The Life in the Work of Sylvia Ashton-Warner." A textual and biographical study of the New Zealand writer's novels, focused on the abandoned manuscripts of "Artist," a daring roman à clef about women's creativity.

Publications

Books

Wunderkind: The Reputation of Carson McCullers (Camden House, 1995).

Critical Edition of Washington Irving's Tales of a Traveller (Vol. 10 of The Complete Works of Washington Irving), 1987 (rpt. Library of America, 1991).

Dictionary of American Literary Characters (Gale Research, 1990), with Benjamin Franklin V and Gary Geer.

Recent Essays and Presentations

"Imagination on the Edge of Eruption: Sylvia Ashton-Warner's Passionate Self-Teaching," Provocations, ed. Cathryn McConaghy and Judith P. Robertson (forthcoming — State U of New York P, 2004), with Nancy S. Thompson.

"Tales from 'Behind the Woollen Curtain': Sylvia Ashton-Warner's Correspondence with Robert Gottlieb," Modern Language Association, San Diego (December 2003).

"Gullah-Inflected Modernism: Julia Peterkin's Scarlet Black Madonna," Renaissance in Charleston, ed. Harlan Greene and James Hutchisson (U of Georgia P, 2003).

"Carson McCullers, Lillian Smith, and the Politics of Broadway," Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism, ed. Robert L. McDonald and Linda Rohrer Paige (U of Alabama P, 2002).

"Performing Race: DuBose Heyward's Mamba's Daughters On/Off Broadway," Modern Language Association, New York City (December 2002).

"What Is 'Popular' Fiction? Hobomok and the Career of Lydia Maria Child," Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Scottsdale, AZ (October 2002).

"Carson McCullers and Lillian Smith: Southern Playwrights," Ex Libris Interview, WRJA-TV for SCETV (August 2002).

"Julia Peterkin's Scarlet Black Madonna," Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Lafayette, LA (March 2002).

"Heterodox Feminists: Gilman and Glaspell," Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society International Conference, USC (March 2001).

"Reading 'Race' in Rebecca Harding Davis's Waiting for the Verdict, Society for the Study of American Women Writers Inaugural Conference, San Antonio (February 2001).

"Grotesque and Arabesque in McCullers's Drama," Society for the Study of American Women Writers Inaugural Conference, San Antonio (February 2001).

"Dramatizing Desire: Carson McCullers, Lillian Smith, and Stage Adaptation," American Theatre Conference, Universidad de Málaga, Spain (May 2000).