Elaine Showalter is one of the pioneers of feminist literary criticism and is a specialist in Victorian literature and fin-de-siecle. Her books include The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 and Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle. In 1977 she broke new ground with A Literature of their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing which questioned Virgina Woolf's status as feminist heroine. Her latest book Inventing Herself, is a collection of short biographies of feminist icons from Mary Wollstonecraft to Princess Diana. Professor Showalter is also notorious for her examination of British psychiatry's mistreatment of women in The Female Malady and Hystories. She is president-elect of the Modern Language Association.
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