Paula McDowell

Paula McDowell is a Professor of English at New York University's College of Arts & Science, specializing in eighteenth-century British literature, media history, and print culture studies. Her theoretically-informed archival research bridges historical literary studies with contemporary media theory, focusing on textual ecologies across oral, manuscript, print, and digital formats.

• Ph.D. in English from Stanford University (1991)
• B.A. in Honors English from University of British Columbia, Canada (1982)

Professor McDowell's research centers on eighteenth-century British literature and social history, media theory, archives and cultural memory, and particularly the Marshall McLuhan archives. She is known for her groundbreaking work on women's roles in literary production, with current research focusing on McLuhan's Women, a study examining how women historians, literary scholars, educators, and others shaped Marshall McLuhan's ideas. Her work reveals how communication technologies transform cultural production across historical periods.

McDowell's publication record demonstrates remarkable continuity in exploring media transitions, from eighteenth-century print culture to twentieth-century media theory. Her scholarship reveals patterns in how technological shifts affect knowledge production, with particular attention to marginalized voices in media history. Recent work focuses on Marshall McLuhan's intellectual context and the women who influenced his thinking, while earlier publications established foundational work on women in the eighteenth-century London literary marketplace.

• John Ben Snow Foundation Prize for The Invention of the Oral
• Choice Outstanding Academic Title Awards for The Invention of the Oral and The Women of Grub Street
• National Humanities Center Fellowship
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship
• American Philosophical Society Research Grant
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship

Professor McDowell has secured significant research funding through prestigious fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, American Philosophical Society, National Humanities Center, and National Endowment for the Humanities. Her current projects include completing McLuhan's Women while continuing archival work on eighteenth-century print culture. She collaborates with scholars across disciplines including media studies, book history, and gender studies, contributing to interdisciplinary conversations about how communication technologies shape cultural production.