Karen Chase

(1979)
Professor
Victorian Literature, Theory of Fiction

Degrees

Ph.D. Stanford University, 1979
M.A. Stanford University, 1977
B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) University of California, Los Angeles, 1973

Books

  • The Victorians and Old Age (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2009).
  • Ed., Middlemarch in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford University Press, 2005).
  • The Spectacle of Intimacy: Victorian Family Life on the Public Stage (Co-author, Michael Levenson), Princeton (2000).
  • Middlemarch. Cambridge, Landmark Series (1991).
  • Eros and Psyche: The Representation of Personality in Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Methuen (1984).

Articles

  • “Love, Guilt and Reparation,” in What Should I Read Next? Eds. Jessica Feldman and Robert Stilling (The University Press of Virginia, forthcoming 2008)
  • "Green Dickens," (co-author Michael Levenson) Essays in Honor of Steven Marcus, ed. Eileen Gilooly (forthcoming).
  • "Mayhew, The Prince and the Poor: The Great Exhibition" (co-author Michael Levenson) Victorian Prism, Eileen Gilooly et al., eds. (University Press of Virginia, 2006).
  • "Queen Victoria," (co-author Michael Levenson) entry for the Encyclopedia of British Literary History, ed. Nancy Armstrong (Oxford University Press, 2005).
  • "George Eliot and the Woman Question"; "George Eliot and Feminist Approaches" Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot, ed. John Rignall, Oxford University Press (1998).
  • "On the Parapets of Privacy," (co-author Michael Levenson) in A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture, ed. Herbert Tucker (Blackwell's, 1998).
  • "I never saw a man so frightened: The Young Queen and the Parliamentary Bedchambers" in Queen Victoria and the Making of Victorian Cultures, ed. M. Homans and A. Munich, Cambridge University Press, (1998) (co-author Michael Levenson).
  • "Jane Eyre's Interior Design," reproduced from Eros and Psyche in New Casebook on Jane Eyre, (Macmillan, 1997).
  • "'Bad was My Commentary': Propriety, Madness, Independence in Feminist Literary History," in Victorian Connections, ed. Jerome McGann (1989).
  • "The Kindness of Consanguinity: Family History in Henry Esmond," Modern Language Studies (Summer, 1986).
  • "The Modern Family and the Ancient Image in Romola," Dickens Studies Annual 14 (Fall 1985).
  • "The Literal Heroine: A Study of Gissing's The Odd Women," Criticism 26 (Summer 1984), pp. 231-244.

Lectures and Presentations

  • “Objects and Subjects: The Aging ‘I’ Among Ancient Groves,” CUNY Graduate Center, New York, May 1, 2008.
  • “Growning Old in the Nineteenth Century – A Science of Terrors,” Cambridge University, March 6, 2007
  • “Faces and Spaces: Locating Age in Dickens’s London,” King’s College, London, February 26, 2007
  • “Who’s/Whose Jane Eyre,” Keynote Speaker, opening of the Rare Book School Exhibition, “Heir Apparent; A Biography of Charlotte Bronte’s Classic Novel” Rotunda and RBB, December 9, 2005
  • Panel Chair: “Generations II: Elders” NAVSA Conference, University of Virginia, October 2005 Contemporary Fiction in Context: Writing the Immigrant Experience, Teaching Initiative, Virginia Beach, August 15-16, 2005 (With Michael Levenson)
  • “Paper Traces; Dickens, Mayhew and the Circulation of Waste,” (with Michael Levenson) London, Monuments and Dust Annual Symposium, June 28, 2004
  • “The Fixed Period,” Modern Language Association December 2003
  • “Body Shock: What to Do with the Dying?” (with Michael Levenson), Modern Language Association, December 2003
  • “Where to Breathe in Gissing’s London,” (with Michael Levenson) London, Monuments and Dust Annual Symposium, July 9-10, 2003
  • “Country Mouse and the City of Cats: Dickensian Age in the Heart of Mid-London” (with Michael Levenson) London, Monuments and Dust Annual Symposium, July 16-17, 2002
  • “Ha Jin’s The Bridegroom: Stories,” Literature From the Pacific Rim, Teaching Initiative, Virginia Beach, March 15-16, 2002
  • “Close Readings,” Panel on Pedagogy, University of Virginia, November 16, 2001
  • “London Through the Aged,” (with Michael Levenson)Annual Conference -- Dickens Society, Roanoke, Va., October 12-14, 2001
  • Panel Chair, Crystal Palace, Locating the Victorians Conference, London, July 12-15, 2001
  • “Mayhew’s palace,” (with Michael Levenson), London, Monuments and Dust Annual Symposium, July 10-11, 2001
  • “Crystal palace in a Muddy London” (with Michael Levenson), Conference on ‘The Great Exhibition’, CUNY, May 2001.
  • “Teaching Fiction,” Teaching Literature Series, University of Virginia, Department of English, November 3, 2000
  • “The Place of Age,” (with Michael Levenson), London, Monuments and Dust Annual Symposium, July 3, 2000
  • “Student Performance in the Classroom,” (with Michael Levenson) Conference on Teaching, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, January 2000
  • Moderator, “Victorian Spectacles and Spectators,” Millennial Histories and Prophecies: Literary Truth and Scientific Method, Graduate Student Conference, University of Virginia, April, 2000
  • “The One-Room Solution: Architectural Designs of Robert Kerr,” (with Michael Levenson), Monuments and Dust: The Culture of Victorian London, July 1999.
  • “Oliver Twist’s London,” guest lecture, The Culture of London Program, Regent’s College, London, June 1999
  • “The Aging Queen and the Youth of Culture,” (with Michael Levenson), Modern Language Association, December 1998
  • “The Crystal Palace, plc; or How a Prince Married His Public and Reinvented a Nation” (with Michael Levenson), Conference on Victorian Collaborations, Graduate Center, CUNY, May 1998
  • "The Dying Wife, The Strolling Bloomer and the Nightingale: Pleasures as Perils at the Victorian Fireside," (with Michael Levenson), University of Warwick, December 1996.
  • "Caroline Norton: A Woman's Poet," Re-Thinking Woman's Poetry Conference, Birkbeck College, July 1995
  • "Caroline Norton, The Prime Minister, and the Press," Modern Language Association, December 1994
  • "Was That An Angel in the House? Rethinking Victorian Domesticity," (with Michael Levenson), Faculty Colloquium, University of Virginia, Fall 1993
  • "The English Gentleman's House," (with Michael Levenson), Union College, Fall 1992
  • "The Problem of Reputation in George Eliot's Middlemarch," Union College, Fall 1992
  • "Middlemarch and the Victorians," Union College, Fall 1992
  • "Studies in Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov," Monroe Hill College, guest lecturer 3 weeks, Spring 1992
  • "After Incest: Family Structure in the Victorian Novel," Modern Language Association annual convention, 1986
  • "Propriety, Madness, Independence: The Goals of Feminist Literary History" Conference on Feminist Criticism, University of Virginia, September 1986
  • "Literalism as Heroism in George Gissing," Modern Language Association annual convention, 1983
  • "Subjects and Objects: A Study in Bronte's Villette"(with Michael Levenson) Modern Language Association annual convention, 1977

Editorial Positions

  • Co-Editor, Virginia Victorian Studies Series, The University Press of Virginia, 1990-2000
  • Chair, Board of Directors, The University Press of Virginia, 1992-3
  • Member, Board of Directors, The University Press of Virginia, 1989-1993
  • Trustee, The Dickens Society, 1989-1991
  • Editorial board, Victorians Institute Journal

Honors

  • IMP Society Faculty Award for Most Distinguished Teaching, 2001
  • Cavalier Chair of Distinguished Teaching, 2000
  • Lamont Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature, Union College, Fall 1992