Jane Gallop
Encyclopedia
Jane Anne Gallop is an American
professor
who since 1992 has served as Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature
at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she has taught since 1990.
in 1972, and a Ph.D in French literature
in 1976 at the same institution, as part of the Ford Foundation
Six-Year Ph.D. Program. She taught in the French Department at Miami University
in Ohio
. She was Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Humanities
at Rice University
, where she founded the Women's Studies
program, as well as serving as chair of the Department of French and Italian. She has also taught or served as a Visiting Professor, at Gettysburg College
, Emory University
, the University of Minnesota
, Dartmouth College
, Johns Hopkins University
, and the Chicago Psychoanalytic Center.
, especially Jacques Lacan
's psychoanalytic theory
(particularly in the context of the American and French feminist responses to it), she has written on topics which include psychoanalysis and feminism; the Marquis de Sade
; feminist literary criticism
; pedagogy
; sexual harassment
; photography
; and queer theory
. She claims that her writing can be understood, "as the consistent application of a close reading
method to theoretical texts." She has taught this method of close reading theory to her students for the past 35 years.
Gallop also writes about her personal and professional experiences in Anecdotal Theory. She uses personal narrative as a starting point for critical essays in the hopes of producing a "more literary theory."
Her book, Living with His Camera (Duke University Press, 2003) focuses on the relationship between photography as art and photography as family history. Gallop explores how the photography of her longtime partner, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee film professor Dick Blau
, chronicles their relationship and also relationships between them and their two children, Max and Ruby. On the basis of black and white photographs of them that Blau regularly took, Gallop became interested in the implications of being the photograph's subject. Blau's talent for finding the perfect picture in the mundane moment is combined with Gallop's commentary as a subject and as a scholar. Each chapter involves analysis of an influential book concerning photography—including Roland Barthes
's Camera Lucida and Susan Sontag
's On Photography in relation to Blau's photographs. Gallop's analysis of what she finds in the photographs focuses on male/female relationships, childhood, sibling rivalry, intimate and erotic moments, and how the camera both captures and distorts these moments. Her conclusion is that the camera has become a "third person" in her relationship with Blau, creating the triangle of photographer, camera, and subject. Then too, the camera is able to show new angles, insights, flaws, and wonders that the individual people cannot themselves see without the camera's special quality for freezing and framing moments and experiences in time.
Her critical interest in time is further explored in her most recent book, The Deaths of the Author: Reading and Writing in Time (Duke University Press, 2011) In this book Gallop adds new dimensions to a familiar concept in literary criticism, the so-called "death of the author" by considering not only the abstract theoretical death of the author but also the writer's literal death. Through close readings of the literary theorists Roland Barthes
, Jacques Derrida
, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
, she shows that the death of the author is best understood as a relation to temporality for both the reader and writer. She adds new connotations to the phrase and concept by connecting an author's theoretical, literal, and metaphoric deaths.
. She and her partner Dick Blau
live in Milwaukee; they have two children, Max and Ruby.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
who since 1992 has served as Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she has taught since 1990.
Education
Gallp earned a B.A. at Cornell UniversityCornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in 1972, and a Ph.D in French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
in 1976 at the same institution, as part of the Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
Six-Year Ph.D. Program. She taught in the French Department at Miami University
Miami University
Miami University is a coeducational public research university located in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and the second oldest university in Ohio, founded four years after Ohio University. In its 2012 edition, U.S...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. She was Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
at Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, where she founded the Women's Studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
program, as well as serving as chair of the Department of French and Italian. She has also taught or served as a Visiting Professor, at Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a private four-year liberal arts college founded in 1832, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States, adjacent to the famous battlefield. Its athletic teams are nicknamed the Bullets. Gettysburg College has about 2,700 students, with roughly equal numbers of men and women...
, Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
, the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, and the Chicago Psychoanalytic Center.
Career
She is the author of nine books, and nearly a hundred articles. In addition to psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, especially Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
's psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalytic theory refers to the definition and dynamics of personality development which underlie and guide psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy. First laid out by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work...
(particularly in the context of the American and French feminist responses to it), she has written on topics which include psychoanalysis and feminism; the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
; feminist literary criticism
Feminist literary criticism
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller to cutting-edge theoretical work in...
; pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
; sexual harassment
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
; photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
; and queer theory
Queer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...
. She claims that her writing can be understood, "as the consistent application of a close reading
Close reading
Close reading describes, in literary criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they...
method to theoretical texts." She has taught this method of close reading theory to her students for the past 35 years.
Writings
Gallop's most controversial book addresses the issue of sexual harassment. In Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment she documents her personal experiences being accused of sexual harassment at her workplace, and formulates a feminist response to the emotional episodeGallop also writes about her personal and professional experiences in Anecdotal Theory. She uses personal narrative as a starting point for critical essays in the hopes of producing a "more literary theory."
Her book, Living with His Camera (Duke University Press, 2003) focuses on the relationship between photography as art and photography as family history. Gallop explores how the photography of her longtime partner, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee film professor Dick Blau
Dick Blau
Dick Blau is an artist and a major figure producing and theorizing photography of the family.-Education:Blau holds a BA in English from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University...
, chronicles their relationship and also relationships between them and their two children, Max and Ruby. On the basis of black and white photographs of them that Blau regularly took, Gallop became interested in the implications of being the photograph's subject. Blau's talent for finding the perfect picture in the mundane moment is combined with Gallop's commentary as a subject and as a scholar. Each chapter involves analysis of an influential book concerning photography—including Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
's Camera Lucida and Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
's On Photography in relation to Blau's photographs. Gallop's analysis of what she finds in the photographs focuses on male/female relationships, childhood, sibling rivalry, intimate and erotic moments, and how the camera both captures and distorts these moments. Her conclusion is that the camera has become a "third person" in her relationship with Blau, creating the triangle of photographer, camera, and subject. Then too, the camera is able to show new angles, insights, flaws, and wonders that the individual people cannot themselves see without the camera's special quality for freezing and framing moments and experiences in time.
Her critical interest in time is further explored in her most recent book, The Deaths of the Author: Reading and Writing in Time (Duke University Press, 2011) In this book Gallop adds new dimensions to a familiar concept in literary criticism, the so-called "death of the author" by considering not only the abstract theoretical death of the author but also the writer's literal death. Through close readings of the literary theorists Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
, Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory , and critical theory. Her critical writings helped create the field of queer studies...
, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian literary critic, theorist and a University Professor at Columbia University. She is best known for the essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?", considered a founding text of postcolonialism, and for her translation of Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology. She...
, she shows that the death of the author is best understood as a relation to temporality for both the reader and writer. She adds new connotations to the phrase and concept by connecting an author's theoretical, literal, and metaphoric deaths.
Personal life
She was born in Duluth, MinnesotaDuluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
. She and her partner Dick Blau
Dick Blau
Dick Blau is an artist and a major figure producing and theorizing photography of the family.-Education:Blau holds a BA in English from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University...
live in Milwaukee; they have two children, Max and Ruby.