Meredith McGill

Meredith McGill is a Professor of English at Rutgers University specializing in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Poetry and Poetics, and Book and Media History. She is a leading scholar in American literary studies with significant contributions to understanding nineteenth-century American resistance to intellectual property controls and transatlantic literary exchange.

Her academic background includes a PhD from Johns Hopkins University, an MA (Cantab) from Emmanuel College, and a BA from Williams College. This strong foundation has supported her influential career in literary scholarship.

Professor McGill's research explores the intersections of literary production, book history, and media theory. She is the author of American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting, 1834-1853 (2003) and has edited collections including Taking Liberties with the Author (2013) and The Traffic in Poems: Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Transatlantic Exchange (2008). She co-directs the Black Bibliography Project with Jacqueline Goldsby at Yale University, which received a significant Mellon Foundation grant in 2022.

Her scholarly output demonstrates consistent engagement with textual circulation, authorship, and the material conditions of literary production. Across her publications, McGill examines how literary works move across national boundaries and how these practices shape our understanding of authorship and intellectual property, bridging historical scholarship with contemporary theoretical concerns.

Professor McGill has received numerous prestigious awards:

• Mellon Foundation awards for Black Bibliography Project (2019-2021, 2022-25)
• Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching (2019)
• Beinecke Distinguished Fellow in the Humanities, Yale University (2019-20)
• Class of 1932 Fellow, Princeton University (Spring 2016)
• Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society (2003-4)

She has held significant leadership roles including President of C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists (2018-2020), Trustee of the English Institute (2015-2022), and Chair of the MLA Division on Nineteenth-Century American Literature (2016). She serves on Rutgers University's Digital Humanities and Public Humanities Steering Committees.

Professor McGill's co-direction of the Black Bibliography Project represents a significant intervention in African American literary studies. Her work has helped establish 'Black Bibliography' as a critical framework for understanding the material conditions of African American literary production, as evidenced by the special issue of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (Summer 2022) that she co-edited with Jacqueline Goldsby.