Felicity Nussbaum

Felicity Nussbaum is a Research Professor in the Department of English at UCLA, specializing in 18th-century British literature, critical theory, gender studies, and postcolonial/anglophone studies. She joined UCLA in 1996 after teaching at Syracuse University and Indiana University, South Bend.

• Education: B.A. (magna cum laude) from Austin College, M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University.

Her research explores intersections of gender, race, and empire in early modern literature, with a focus on marginalized voices in theater, drama, and nonfiction prose. She has pioneered theoretical approaches to eighteenth-century studies through co-edited volumes like The New Eighteenth Century.

Recent publications include essays on 18th-century tragedy (2020) and projects on Hester Thrale Piozzi, Phebe Gibbes, and discourses of blackness, slavery, and the Orient. Her work spans critical theory, postcolonial narratives, and interdisciplinary cultural analysis.

• Guggenheim Fellowship
• Andrew Mellon Fellowship at the Huntington Library
• Marta Sutton Weeks Fellowship at Stanford Humanities Center
• Rockefeller Humanist-in-Residence at Rutgers' Institute for Research on Women
• UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award with Distinction in Graduate Teaching
• Gottschalk Prize for The Autobiographical Subject (1989)

Professor Nussbaum teaches graduate seminars on topics like Johnson-Boswell circles, abolitionist literature, and the Oriental Tale. She has secured numerous grants and fellowships to advance scholarship in eighteenth-century studies.