History Department and Gender & Sexuality Studies Program Evanston, Illinois 60208 U.S.A. (847) 491-3406 a-owen@northwestern.edu Higher Education University of Sussex: Ph.D. in Modern British History (1987) University of Sussex: B. A. in Modern History, First Class Honours (1971) Employment Professor of History and Gender Studies 2001- Board of Lady Managers Professor, 2004-6 Founding Director, Gender Studies Program, 2000-2 1992-2001 Harvard University 1989-1992 Harvard University 1988-1989 Associate Professor of History and Women s Studies Assistant Professor of History and Women s Studies Lecturer in Women s Studies Fellowships 2003-4 Senior Fellow, Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities National Humanities Center NEH Residential Fellowship (9 months) 1998-1999 National Endowment for the Fellowship for University Teachers (12 months) Humanities, 1996 1993-1994 Senior Fellow, Center for the Humanities Harvard University Rockefeller Foundation Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer, 1986-1987 Harvard Divinity School
University of California, San Diego 1984-1986 University of California, Berkeley 1971-1972 Research Fellow (History) Fulbright and Cultural Exchange Scholar (History) Research Leaves, Honors, Awards, and Prizes E. LeRoy Hall Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2012-13 Sabbatical Research Leave, 2006-7 Board of Lady Managers Professor,, 2004-6 Sabbatical Research Leave, 2002-3 American Philosophical Society Research Grant, 1996 (declined) Harvard University, Clark Fund for Faculty Research Support, (summer) 1990, 1991 Harvard University, Thomas Hoopes Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 1990 British Government Post-Graduate Award, University of Sussex, 1980-1983 Books Publications The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late-Victorian England (London: Virago, 1989); Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1990; reissued in paperback, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); paperback, 2007. Articles *** Katherine Mansfield s Ghost: Spirit and Self in a Modern Age, Journal of Modern Intellectual History (under review). Sexual Politics, in Women and Religion: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, vol. iv, Pamela Klassen, ed., (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 10-46. The Religious Sense in a Post-War Secular Age, in The Art of Survival: Gender and History in Europe, 1450-2000. Essays in Honour of Olwen Hufton, Ruth Harris and Lyndal Roper, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 159-77.
Occultism and the 'Modern' Self in Fin-de-Siècle Britain, in Meanings of Modernity: Britain from the Late-Victorian Era to World War 11, ed. Martin Daunton and Bernhard Rieger (Oxford: Berg, 2001), pp. 71-96. Cultural Histories Old and New: Rereading the Work of Janet Oppenheim, with Seth Koven, Peter Mandler, Susan Pedersen, Victorian Studies, 41.1 (Autumn 1997) [1998], pp. 69-103. The Sorcerer and His Apprentice: Aleister Crowley and the Magical Exploration of Edwardian Subjectivity, Journal of British Studies 36 (January 1997), pp. 99-133. Revised in Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, Henrik Bogdan & Martin P. Starr, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 15-52. Borderland Forms : Arthur Conan Doyle, Albion s Daughters, and the Politics of the Cottingley Fairies, History Workshop Journal 38 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 48-85. Women and nineteenth-century spiritualism: strategies in the subversion of femininity, Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Patriarchy and Politics, Jim Obelkevitch, Lyndal Roper, and Raphael Samuel, eds. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1987), pp. 130-153. The other voice: women, children and nineteenth-century spiritualism, Language, Gender and Childhood, Carolyn Steedman, Cathy Urwin, and Valerie Walkerdine, eds. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), pp. 34-73. Encyclopedia and Reference "The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn," New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press), forthcoming, [short essay]. "Spiritualism," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Bonnie G. Smith, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), [short essay]. Florence Cook, New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), [entry]. Work-in-Progress A third book, working title "Culture, Psyche, and the Soul in Modern Britain" Multiple Reviews
The Times Literary Supplement, The American Historical Review, Isis, The Journal of Modern History, Gender and History, Social History of Medicine, Victorian Studies, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Yeats Annual Other Media BBC World Service, The Supernatural, three programs airing from 6 December 2004 (participant) Chicago Public Radio, The Occult in Modern Culture, Odyssey Program, 9 June 2004; 18 October 2004 (particpant) BBC Television/Open University, "Was Anybody There?: Victorian Science and Spiritualism", filmed in Britain, February 1997. First aired Fall 1997 (participant) Peer Review University of California Press, University of Chicago Press, Johns Hopkins Press, Routledge Press, Basil Blackwell Press, Feminist Studies, Gender and History, History Workshop Journal, Journal of British Studies, Journal of Twentieth Century History, Journal of Victorian Culture, Victorian Studies. Fellowships Reader: National Center for the Humanities Professional Activities Member: American Historical Association; North American Conference on British Studies. Selected Colloquia and Invited Papers University of Chicago, Mellon Consortium Conference in British History, 11-12 October 2013, Defining Modernity. Nineteenth Century Studies Association 33rd annual conference, Asheville, North Carolina, 22-24 March 2012, keynote speaker, Spiritual Matters/Matters of the Spirit. Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 9-10 December 2010, keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Fin-de-Siècle Symbolism Between Light and Darkness, in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, the Department of Art History at
the University of Helsinki, the Society for Art History in Finland, and the Finnish National Gallery (unable to attend). University of London, Institute of English Studies, 11-12 May 2007, opening keynote speaker, "Magical Thinking: a symposium": "Magical Thinking, Modern Spirits and Other Matters." University of California, Los Angeles, 19 January 2006, European History Colloquium, invited speaker, Katherine Mansfield s Ghost: Spirit and Self in a Modern Age. Columbia University, 2-3 December 2005, keynote speaker, "What is Enchantment?" conference: "Spirit, Consciousness, and the Impossibility of Religion: Bloomsbury and Others after the Great War." Princeton University, 7-8 October 2005, "Dark Rooms: Photography and Invisibility" conference, invited speaker: "Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of the Cottingley Fairy Photographs." Oxford University, 9 July 2004, Conference in Honour of Professor Dame Olwen Hufton, invited speaker, Spirit and Self in a Modern Age. Royal Holloway, London University, 25 February 2004, invited presentation, The Occult and Modern Culture. University of Chicago, 7 November 2001, invited British Romantic and Victorian Culture workshop presentation. "Locating the Victorians", International Conference hosted by the Science Museum, London, 12-15 July 2001, invited panel Chair and Discussant: "Milestones". University of Michigan Visiting Scholar (invited), 24-5 March 1999, Center for the Comparative Study of Social Transformations, "Putting the Modern in its Place": 1) public talk, "Occultism and the Modern Self in Fin-de-Siècle Britain" 2) CSST Faculty Seminar, "Magic and the Ambiguities of Modernity" 3) graduate student workshop. Social History Society, York, England, 2-4 January 1999, panel presentation, "Occultism and the Modern Self in Fin-de-Siècle Britain" National Humanities Center, North Carolina, invited public lecture, "Magic and the Modern Self in Fin-de-Siècle Britain", 10 December 1998. Neale Colloquium in British History, University College, London, invited participant and speaker, "The Consciousness of Modernity", 27-8 February 1998 North American Conference on British Studies, Chicago, October 18-20 1996, panel presentation, "Janet Oppenheim: In Memorium"
Institute of Historical Research, London, 27 February 1996, invited speaker, "The Occult and the Consciousness of Self" Annual Conference of the British Records Association, London, 6 December 1995, panel Chair and Discussant, "Women and Religion" University of North London, Conference on "The Victorian Supernatural", Keynote Speaker: "Placing the Victorian Supernatural", 25-6 November 1995 North American Conference on British Studies, Vancouver, 14-16 October 1994, panel presentation, "Magic and Modern Subjectivity" University of Chicago, 13 May 1994, invited workshop presentation, "The Sorcerer and His Apprentice", Center for the Humanities, 20 April 1994, Fellow's presentation, "The Sorcerer and His Apprentice" Princeton University, 13 April 1994, invited speaker, "Modern Magic and the Exploration of Subjectivity" Rutgers University, 12 April 1994, invited speaker, "Modern Magic and the Exploration of Subjectivity" Harvard University, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, invited speaker, Gender, Politics, Culture Colloquium, 6 December 1993 Essex University, England, Colloquium on the Family and Family History, invited participant, February 1991, invited speaker, "Spiritualism and the Presentation of Femininity in Victorian England", April 1990 University of California, Berkeley, History Colloquium, invited speaker, "Arthur Conan Doyle and the Politics of the Cottingley Fairies", May 1990 Harvard University, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, invited presentation, "Women and Spiritualism in Late-Victorian England", April 1989 Harvard University Divinity School, "Religion and the Subversion of Femininity", April 1987 Western Association of Women Historians, Pasadena, California, "Women and Spiritualism in Victorian England", May 1986 University of California, San Diego, invited presentation, "Victorian Spiritualism", November 1985
San Diego State University, invited presentation, "Women's History and the History of Religion", September 1985 Feminism and Psychoanalysis Group, invited presentation, "History, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis, London, May 1983 History Workshop Annual Conference, "Women and late-victorian Spiritualism", Sheffield, October 1982 University of Sussex, Faculty-Graduate History Colloquium, "The Hidden History of Victorian Spiritualism", May 1982 University of Sussex, History Society, "Women and Hysteria in Victorian England", October 1981