Frances Ferguson

Frances Ferguson is the Mabel Greene Myers Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English at the University of Chicago. She has taught there since 2012 and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University (1973). Her research focuses on 18th-century British literature, Romanticism, law and literature, and the novel, with additional interests in critical theory and the history of education. She explores how literature intersects with legal frameworks, educational systems, and evolving social values.

Education:

• Ph.D., Yale University, 1973

Her research investigates the transformation of literary forms and critical practices across centuries, including the role of dissent in educational thought, the relationship between poetry and the novel, and the historical context of reading practices. She has advised students on topics ranging from Wordsworth’s philosophical influences to the critique of marriage in Victorian novels.

Her publications include Pornography, The Theory (2005), Solitude and the Sublime (1992), and Wordsworth: Language as Counter-Spirit (1977), alongside numerous articles on Romanticism, legal narratives, and literary form.

Her work bridges literary analysis with interdisciplinary inquiries into law, education, and cultural history, offering critical perspectives on how literature shapes and reflects societal structures.