Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Sarah Wasserman, assistant dean for faculty affairs, has been named co-editor of the eminent Oxford Studies in American Literary History book series.

A scholar of 20th- and 21st-century American literature, Wasserman will lead the series alongside Erica Fretwell of the University of Albany. The series encompasses a wide range of topics, periods, and genres, offering an expansive approach to American literary and cultural history.

“I’m glad to have the opportunity to support emerging scholars publishing their first books as well as established scholars working on second and third projects,” Wasserman says. “Reading new work is always exciting, and it’s a great way to learn about changing methodologies, lines of inquiry, and developments in American literary studies.”

Wasserman says that she and Fretwell are committed to literary criticism that brings together different, even unlikely approaches. They’re less interested in trendy work than in rigorous scholarship that advances understanding of American literature and literary history. “But that scholarship need not be conventional; it can range widely across period, topic, and genre,” Wasserman says. “We’re especially looking forward to publishing projects by women and emerging scholars with fresh ideas.”

Wasserman previously served as associate professor of English and director of the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware. Her first book, The Death of Things: Ephemera and the American Novel, received honorable mention for the Modernist Studies Association’s First Book Prize, was shortlisted for Arizona State University’s Institute for Humanities Research 2022 Book Award, and was lauded in The Nation. She also co-hosts Novel Dialogue, a podcast that puts writers and critics in conversation about the making of novels.

Her forthcoming projects include an edited volume of interviews from the podcast and an article on contemporary fiction. She’s also at work on Computer Love, a book exploring the exuberant romance with computers that defined the 1980s. The project examines novels, commercials, songs, films, and television programs that, she says, “gave us outlandish visions of how computers would change our romantic lives—and vice versa.”