TAMIU Professor Conducts Research in Ireland, England
While students and professors at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) are getting ready for another summer session, Dr. Ula Klein, assistant professor of English, is preparing for a trip to Dublin and London to conduct research for a book-length project on female cross-dressers in 18th Century literature.
She will spend five days conducting research at the National Library of Ireland and another five days at the British Library requesting and reviewing materials and taking notes.
“I will be visiting the National Library of Ireland to do research on author and educator Maria Edgeworth and her novel ‘Belinda,’ ” Dr. Klein said.
Anglo-Irish novelist Edgeworth was a literary celebrity and an influential female novelist of the early 19th Century. She was also an advocate for women’s education.
Klein will teach a course Fall 2016 on the 18th Century novel and one of the texts being covered is Edgeworth’s “Belinda.”
“Getting to read her letters will definitely give me a better sense of her as an author, which is information that I will be able to pass on to my students. More broadly, working in archives and looking at the material and historical aspects of literary products is a methodology that I strive to bring to my students so they are more knowledgeable about the discipline of literary studies,” Klein said.
While in London, Klein said she would be visiting the British Library in order to look at newspaper archives from the 18th Century.
“I’m hoping that by looking at some of Edgeworth’s letters, I might get a clearer idea of what influenced her to include a cross-dressing character in her novel. At the British Library, I will be looking at newspaper accounts of real-life women who passed as men in order to get a better sense of how popular such accounts were. I’m very interested in examining how gender, the body and sexuality are represented in texts, and the female cross-dresser is a figure that explicitly draws our attention to these issues,” Klein explained.
“Last year I went to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., to look at Elizabeth Inchbald’s diaries, and I was unspeakably moved by the experience of handling items that she herself had used and written in over 200 years ago. I’m very excited to have a similar opportunity with the letters of Maria Edgeworth,” Klein said.
The trip to Washington, D.C., and this year’s trip to Ireland and England were made possible thanks to a TAMIU University Travel Grant.
It won’t be all work for Klein while she’s abroad, however.
“While in London, I will be attending a performance of ‘Macbeth’ at the Shakespeare Globe Theater. I have never attended a Globe performance before, and I’m very excited to have that extra cultural experience. I hope to bring students from TAMIU to the Globe in summer 2017 for a Shakespeare-themed study abroad trip,” Klein said.
Klein’s class for Fall 2016, ENGL 4347 “Virgins, Mothers and Harlots: Women and the Rise of the Novel,” will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 – 10:45 a.m.
Registration is underway at uconnect.tamiu.edu
The first day of classes for the semester is Tuesday, Aug. 23.
For more information, contact Klein at ursula.klein@tamiu.edu or 326.2642.
Additional information is available at tamiu.edu and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.