Nina Auerbach discusses feminist literary criticism from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. She describes her study, Ellen Terry: Player in Her Time, which relates the Victorian-era actress to her era. Auerbach is also the author of Romantic Imprisonment: Women and Other Glorified Outcasts.
In the second segment [12:45], J. Hillis Miller‘s discussion of currents in literature in the late 1980s focusses on deconstruction and other “new criticisms,” the state of the literary canon, and the evolution of his belief that there is an ethical dimension which informs reading and teaching literature. Among Miller’s books are The Ethics of Reading and The Linguistic Moment.
At the time of this interview, Auerbach was professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Miller was professor of English at the University of California at Irvine.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
