English Department Faculty
Laura Tanner
Professor
Laura Tanner
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S425
Telephone: 617-552-2495
Email: tannerl@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Colgate University
- Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Research Interests
Modernism; American fiction of the last century; theories of the body.
Department
Biography
Specializes in American literature of the last century, especially modernist narrative, African-American fiction, and contemporary women鈥檚 writing. She has written extensively on representations of grief, illness, violence, and the everyday in fiction and visual art. Recent courses include American Modernisms, Inhabiting Narrative, Contemporary American Women Writers, Bodies and Borders, and Everyday Fictions.
Selected Publications
Books
- The Elusive Everyday in the Fiction of Marilynne Robinson. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
- . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.
- . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Selected Articles
- 鈥淐oncrete Sensations: Imagining Feeling in A Farewell to Arms.鈥� Modern Fiction Studies 62.3 (Fall 2016): 444 鈥� 461.
- "Living Breast Cancer: The Art of Hollis Sigler" in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Spring 2014, Vol. 33, No. 1, 219-239.
- 鈥淗olding on to 9/11: The Shifting Grounds of Materiality.鈥� PMLA: Journal of the Modern Language Association of America. 127.1 (January 2012): 58-76.
- "Uncomfortable Furniture: Inhabiting Domestic and Narrative Space in Marilynne Robinson's Home." Contemporary Women鈥檚 Writing. 2011; doi: 10.1093/cww/ vpr013.
- "Intimate Geography: The Body, Race and Space in Nella Larsen's Quicksand.鈥澛�
- Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 51-2 (Summer 2009): 179-202.
- 鈥橪ooking Back from the Grave鈥�: Sensory Perception and the Anticipation of Absence in Gilead.鈥� Contemporary Literature. 48.2 (Summer 2007).
- 鈥淏odies in Waiting: Representations of Medical Waiting Rooms in Contemporary American Fiction.鈥� American Literary History. 14.1 (Spring 2002): 115-130.
- 鈥淗aunted Images: Photographic Representations of People with AIDS.鈥� 聽Genre. 29.1-2 (Spring/Summer 1997): 135-159.
- 鈥淒eath-Watch: Terminal Illness and the Gaze in Sharon Olds鈥檚 The Father.鈥� Mosaic: A journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature. 29.1 (Spring 1996): 103-122.
- 鈥淪peaking with 鈥楬ands at our Throats鈥�: The Struggle for Artistic Voice in The Blithedale Romance.鈥� Studies in American Fiction 21.1 (Spring 1993): 1-19.
- "Sweet Pain and Charred Bodies: Figuring Violence in The White Hotel.鈥� Boundary 2: an international journal of literature and culture 18.2 (Summer 1991): 130-149.
- "Reading Rape: Sanctuary and The Women of Brewster Place.鈥� American Literature 62.4 (December 1990): 559-582.
- Reprinted in Gloria Naylor: Critical Perspectives, Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. Anthony Appiah. Cambridge: Amistad Press, 1993.
- Reprinted in Douze Lectures de Sanctuaire. 聽Ed. Andre Bleikasten. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 1995, 187-204.
- Exposing the Sacred Juggle: Revolutionary Rhetoric in Robert Rogers鈥� Ponteach鈥� (co-authored with J. Krasner). Early American Literature 24.1 (Spring 1989): 4-19.
- Uncovering the Magical Disguise of Language: The Narrative Presence in Richard Wright鈥檚 Native Son.鈥� Texas Studies in Literature and Language 29.4 (Winter 1987): 412-431.
- Reprinted in Major Literary Characters: Bigger Thomas. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1990.
- Reprinted in Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives, Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. Anthony Appiah. 聽Cambridge: Amistad Press, 1993.
- 鈥淪elf-Conscious Representation in the Slave Narrative.鈥� Black American Literature Forum 21 (Winter 1987): 415-24.