Devoney Looser

Devoney Looser
Looser speaking at ASU's 2019 graduation
Born	(1967-04-11) April 11, 1967 (age 58) Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
Occupation	University Professor
Spouse	George Justice
Children	2
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship
Academic background
Education	BA, 1989, Augsburg College PhD, 1993, Stony Brook University
Thesis	Rethinking women/history/literature: a feminist investigation of disciplinarity in Lucy Hutchinson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Charlotte Lennox, and Jane Austen (1993)
Academic work
Discipline	English literature
Sub-discipline	Jane Austen
Institutions	Louisiana State University University of Missouri Arizona State University
Website	devoneylooser.com

Devoney Kay Looser (born April 11, 1967) is an American literary critic and Jane Austen scholar. She is Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, where she focuses on women's writing and the history of the novel.

Early life and education

Looser was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota on April 11, 1967,^[1] and raised in White Bear Lake, Minnesota,^[2] where her mother first introduced her to Jane Austen's work.^[3] Looser attended and graduated from Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, Minnesota in 1985.^[4]

As a first-generation college student, Looser received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Augsburg College in 1989 and later earned her doctorate in English with a certification in women's studies from Stony Brook University.^[5]

Career

After teaching at Indiana State University, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Louisiana State University, and the University of Missouri, Looser accepted a faculty appointment at Arizona State University in 2013.^[5]

In 2018, Looser was appointed a Foundation Professor of English for her outstanding faculty accomplishments.^[6] In 2020, she was named a Regents Professor, the highest faculty honor awarded at Arizona State University.^[7]

She has played roller derby as Stone Cold Jane Austen.^[8]

Books and essays

Looser is the author or editor of twelve books, most recently Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane, published by St. Martin's Press (2025). It considers Austen's writings, life, and reputation and "traces the fascinating and fantastical journey her legacy has taken over the past 250 years."^[9]

Her book Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës (2022) is the first full-length biography of Jane and Anna Maria Porter, innovators of bestselling historical fiction before Sir Walter Scott.^[10]

Looser is also the author of The Making of Jane Austen, which focused on how Austen's popular influencers shaped her reputation, including as "a transnational figure used in support of women's suffrage."^[11] Publishers Weekly named The Making of Jane Austen a Best Summer Book (Non-Fiction).^[12]

Her first book was British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820, which examined British women writers and their contributions to historiography.^[13] She followed this up with Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 in 2008.^[14]

Looser's essays and op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Slate, and The TLS. In 2019, Looser brought back into view a forgotten fictional pen portrait of Austen published in an 1823 issue of The Lady's Magazine.^[15]

She has made several discoveries about the Austen family's public anti-slavery activism. In 2021, she published previously unknown facts about its complicated relationship to slavery and anti-slavery, which revealed that Jane Austen's brother, Henry Thomas Austen, had been a delegate to the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention.^[16] Her 2022 essay on Jane Austen's naval brother Charles Austen was the first to describe his complicated history of policing the slave trade in the 1820s.^[17] In 2024, Looser published an essay on Jane Austen's other naval brother, Francis Austen, and his previously unknown leadership role in advocating for an 1826 local parliamentary petition, calling for an end the institution of slavery in the British colonies.^[18]

Looser with Kevin Sandler and Whit Stillman after a screening of his 1990 film Metropolitan.

Looser has done lectures on Jane Austen for The Great Courses. ^[19]

Recognition

In 2018, Looser was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar award to research the sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porter.^[20]

References

1. "Devoney Kay Looser". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Gale. February 9, 2004. Retrieved June 15, 2021 – via Gale In Context: Biography.
2. Weirick, John (November 19, 2018). "No Plain Jane". augsburg.edu. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
3. "Jane Austen on Wheels". augsburg.edu. April 6, 2015. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
4. "I am a Pioneer". hill-murray.org. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
5. Stoneman, Amanda (May 12, 2017). "ASU English professor fosters deep thinkers and problem solvers". english.asu.edu. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
6. LaRue-Sandler, Kristen (August 31, 2018). "ASU English department's Devoney Looser named Foundation Professor". english.asu.edu. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
7. "4 Top ASU Scholars named Regents Professors". November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
8. Cornelius, Keridwen (November 1, 2017). "Spotlight: Devoney Looser". www.phoenixmag.com. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
9. "Wild for Austen". Macmillan Publishing. September 2, 2025. Retrieved October 2, 2025.
10. "The Porter sisters' 'genius' bestsellers are back in the spotlight". Washington Post. October 25, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
11. Darcy, Jane (2018). "Devoney Looser. The Making of Jane Austen". The Review of English Studies. 69 (289): 389–391. doi:10.1093/res/hgx099. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
12. "PW Best Summer Books 2017". Retrieved November 30, 2021.
13. Kasmer, Lisa (2006). "Review of British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820". The English Historical Review (491): 616. doi:10.1093/ehr/cel073. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
14. Murphy, Patricia (2009). "Review of Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850". Nineteenth-Century Literature. 64 (3): 400–402, 435–436. doi:10.1525/ncl.2009.64.3.400. ProQuest 211937903.
15. Lewis, Britt (January 13, 2020). "A new way of picturing Jane Austen". english.asu.edu. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
16. Looser, Devoney (May 21, 2021). "Breaking the silence: Exploring the Austen family's complex entanglements with slavery". www.the-tls.co.uk. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
17. Looser, Devoney (July 8, 2022). "Heroics All at Sea: Jane Austen's brother and 'Crushing' the Slave Trade". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved October 2, 2025.
18. Looser, Devoney (August 14, 2024). "3 of Jane Austen's 6 brothers engaged in antislavery activism − new research offers more clues about her own views". The Conversation. Retrieved October 2, 2025.
19. "The Life and Works of Jane Austen, The Great Courses". Retrieved November 30, 2021.
20. Greguska, Emma (April 17, 2018). "ASU English prof to plumb lives of literary sisters with Guggenheim Fellowship". english.asu.edu. Retrieved February 12, 2020.

Bibliography

• Looser, Devoney (2022). Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës. New York: Bloomsbury US.
• Looser, Devoney, ed. (2021). The Life and Works of Jane Austen. Chantilly, VA: Great Courses.
• Looser, Devoney, ed. (2019). The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Looser, Devoney, ed. (2019). Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811). New York: Penguin Random House.
• West, Jane (2015). Devoney Looser; Melinda O'Connell; Caitlin Kelly (eds.). A Gossip's Story, and A Legendary Tale (1796). Charlottesville, VA: Valancourt Books. ISBN 9781943910151.* Looser, Devoney (2017). The Making of Jane Austen. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.1353/book.51997. ISBN 9781421422824.
• Looser, Devoney, ed. (2015). Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in the Romantic Period. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCO9781139061315. ISBN 9781139061315. S2CID 150938469.
• Looser, Devoney (2008). Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.1353/book.3466. ISBN 9780801887055.
• Looser, Devoney (2001). British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670–1820. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.56021/9780801864483. ISBN 9780801876400.
• Looser, Devoney, ed. (1997). Generations: Academic Feminists in Dialogue. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Looser, Devoney, ed. (1995). Jane Austen and Discourses of Feminism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

External links

• Devoney Looser publications indexed by Google Scholar
• CV
• Personal website Archived 2011-02-02 at the Wayback Machine