Marc Shell, born 1947 in Montreal, is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 literary critic, currently Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of English at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

"New Economic Criticism"

Shell is one of the forerunners, along with Jean-Joseph Goux and others, of the literary-critical movement that has been dubbed 'New Economic Criticism.' His contributions to the study of relations between linguistic

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and literary

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 economies are encompassed in several influential books, including

• The Economy of Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press
  Johns Hopkins University Press
  The Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The Press publishes books, journals, and electronic databases...
  
   1978).
• Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era (UC Berkeley 1982).
• Art and Money (University of Chicago Press
  University of Chicago Press
  The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
  
   1995).

Forthcoming works in this area include the following:

• Wampum
  Wampum
  Wampum are traditional, sacred shell beads of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum include the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell; and the white and purple beads made from the quahog, or Western North Atlantic...
  
   and the Origin of American Money (University of Illinois Press
  University of Illinois Press
  The University of Illinois Press , is a major American university press and part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic projects...
  
   forthcoming).
• The Painting in the Trash Bin: Otis Kaye
  Otis Kaye
  Otis Kaye was an American artist during the early 20th century. He is noted especially for trompe l'oeil paintings of U.S. currency.-Life and work:...
  
   and the Perplexities of Art (Chicago, forthcoming).

Other Areas of Research

Nationalism and kinship: Shell has also worked on issues of in a number of essays and books. Many are concerned with the European Renaissance. These include:

• The End of Kinship
  Kinship
  Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
  
  : "Measure for Measure
  Measure for Measure
  Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays...
  
  ," Incest
  Incest
  Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
  
  , and the Ideal of Universal Siblinghood (Stanford 1988).
• Children of the Earth: Literature, Politics, and Nationhood (Oxford 1993).
• Elizabeth's Glass: With "The Glass of the Sinful Soul" (1544) by Elizabeth I and "Epistle Dedicatory" and "Conclusion" (1548) by John Bale
  John Bale
  John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being...
  
  (Nebraska 1995).

Multilingualism: Shell is co-founder of Harvard's Longfellow Institute, devoted to the study of non-English American literatures. Relevant books about translation, language policy, and bilingualism include:

• The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature (NYU ed. 2000).
• American Babel: Literatures of the United States from Abnaki to Zuni (Harvard ed. 2002).

Disability studies: Shell's books in disability studies include works about paralysis

Paralysis

Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...

 and stuttering

Stuttering

Stuttering , also known as stammering , is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds...

.

• Polio and its Aftermath (Harvard 2005).
• Stutter (Harvard 2006).

Canada and the United States: Shell's writings about Canada and the United States include:

• French-Canadian / American Literary Relations (McGill French Canada Studies Centre 1968).
• Grand Manan: or, A Short History of North America (McGill-Queens 2008 forthcoming).

Awards and degrees

Shell has received a MacArthur Fellowship. He studied at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 and Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

, and earned a B.A. from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 and a Ph.D. from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

. Before going to Harvard, he taught at The State University of New York (Buffalo) and the University of Massachusetts (Amherst)

University of Massachusetts Amherst

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...

.

External links

• Marc Shell