Suzanne Keen

Suzanne Keen is a literary scholar, feminist critic, a poet, author and academic administrator. She is Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty and Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Hamilton College.^[1]

photo credit: Nancy L. Ford

Keen is best known for her work on narrative empathy. She has published numerous essays and chapters on aspects of narrative empathy, extending the theories and applications of her book, Empathy and the Novel (2007).^[2] She has also published widely on contemporary British fiction, Victorian novels, postcolonial literature, and narrative theory.^[3]

From 2012 till 2018, Keen co-edited the Oxford University Press journal Contemporary Women's Writing.^[4]

Education[]

Keen studied at Brown University and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature (Honors) and Studio Art in 1984, and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing in 1986. She then enrolled at Harvard University and earned her Master’s and doctorate in English Language and Literature in 1987 and 1990, respectively.^[1]

Career[]

Keen held an appointment as an Assistant Professor of English in 1990 at Yale University. She then joined Washington and Lee University as Assistant Professor of English in 1995, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1997, and to Professor of English in 2001. From 2005 till 2018, she served there as Thomas H. Broadus Professor of English, before joining Hamilton College as Professor of Literature.^[1]

Keen’s administrative appointments began with terms as Chair of Department of English in 2010, and Interim Dean of the College at Washington and Lee University in 2012. She was named Dean of the College in 2013, a role she served in until 2018, when she became Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Hamilton College.^[5]

Research[]

Keen is best known for her work on narrative empathy. She is a contextual cognitive/affective narrative theorist, with a background in feminist rhetorical narrative theory, and has edited or co-edited special issues of Poetics Today and Style. Her books include, Thomas Hardy’s Brains: Psychology, Neurology, and Hardy’s Imagination (2014) ^[6] Empathy and the Novel (2007),^[7] Narrative Form (2015), Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction (2001), and Victorian Renovations of the Novel (1998).^[8] Since Empathy and the Novel, she has expanded on her theory of narrative empathy in articles and chapters treating authorial strategic narrative empathy,^[9] readers’ dispositions, empathetic techniques in graphic narratives, narrative empathy evoked by nonfiction, narrative personal distress, and empathic inaccuracy.^[10]

Keen published an article in 2006 proposing a theory of narrative empathy, while highlighting the processes and techniques of neuroscientific and psychological investigation of empathy. She posed a series of questions about the impact of narrative empathy on readers.^[11] Keen’s published poetry has appeared in Chelsea, The English Journal, The Graham House Review, The House Mountain Review,^[12] The Ohio Review, Quarterly West, and The Rhode Island Review, among others. She has also authored a book of poems, Milk Glass Mermaid.

Awards/Honors[]

• 1982 - George E. Downing Prize in Art History, Brown University
• 1984 - Younger Scholars Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities
• 1984 - Minnie Helen Hicks Award in English, Brown University
• 1984 - Kim Ann Arstark Prize for Poetry, Brown University
• 1984 - Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of Rhode Island
• 1985 - Pawtucket Arts Council Poetry Prize, Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
• 1987 - The Academy of American Poets Prize, Harvard University
• 1997-98 - Individual Artist’s Fellowship, Commonwealth of Virginia
• 1999-2000 - National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
• 2001 - Fellow, the British Council’s 27th Cambridge Seminar on the Contemporary British Writer^[13]
• 2008 - Outstanding Faculty Award, State Council of Higher Education for Virginia^[14] (One of twelve awarded state-wide)

Bibliography[]

Books[]

• Victorian Renovations of the Novel: Narrative Annexes and the Boundaries of Representation (1998) ISBN 9780511581977
• Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction (2001) ISBN 9781442679450
• Victorian Renovations of the Novel: Narrative Annexes and the Boundaries of Representation (2015) ISBN 9780511581977
• Narrative Form: Revised and Expanded Second Edition (2015) ISBN 9781137439581
• Milk Glass Mermaid (2007) ISBN 9780911015836
• Empathy and the Novel (2007) ISBN 9780195175769
• Thomas Hardy's Brains: Psychology, Neurology, and Hardy's Imagination (2014) ISBN 9780814293522
• Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction (2016) ISBN 9780802086846

Selected articles[]

• Keen, S. (2006). A theory of narrative empathy. Narrative, 14(3), 207-236.
• Keen, S. (2011). Introduction: Narrative and the emotions.
• Keen, S. (2011). Fast tracks to narrative empathy: Anthropomorphism and dehumanization in graphic narratives. SubStance, 40(1), 135-155.

References[]

External links[]

• Suzanne Keen publications indexed by Google Scholar