{{Short description|American scholar of English literature and Women's studies}} {{Infobox writer | name = Martha Vicinus |image = Martha Vicinus.jpg |caption = Martha Vicinus at "The Future of the Queer Past" conference at the University of Chicago in September 2000 |alt = Gray-haired woman in sweater with African animal motifs standing in profile | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1939|11|20}} | birth_place = [[Rochester, New York]] <br> [[United States]] | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} --> | occupation = Historian, Writer | language = English | nationality = [[Americans|American]] | education = [[Northwestern University]] <br> [[Johns Hopkins University]] <br>[[University of Wisconsin]] | subject = Women's Literature <br> Modernism <br> Nineteenth-Century Britain <br> Gender and Sexuality <br> Modern British History | notableworks = ''Independent Women'' <br> ''Suffer and Be Still'' <br> ''A Widening Sphere'' }}
'''Martha Vicinus''' (born November 20, 1939) is an American scholar of [[English literature]] and [[Women's studies]]. She serves as the Eliza M. Mosher Distinguished University Professor of English, Women's Studies, and History at the [[University of Michigan]].<ref name=uocp>{{cite web|title=About the Author, Martha Vicinus|url=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/V/M/au5340543.html|publisher=University of Chicago Press|access-date=26 June 2011}}</ref> Prior to coming to the University of Michigan, Vicinus was a faculty member in the English Department at [[Indiana University]] from 1968 to 1982.<ref name="VicinusPapers">{{cite web |url=http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/findingaids/archives/InU-Ar-VAA2607|title=Martha Vicinus papers, 1969-1980|publisher=Archives Online at Indiana University}}</ref> She has written several books about Victorian women as well as gender and sexuality. She earned a PhD from the [[University of Wisconsin]] in 1968.<ref name=uom>{{cite web|title=Profile: Martha Vicinus|url=https://lsa.umich.edu/english/people/faculty/vicinus.html|work=Department of English|publisher=University of Michigan|access-date=23 June 2021}}</ref>
She has been noted for drawing attention to the Victorian [[double standard]]s that were applied to women and to the Victorian ideal of women without sexual desires.<ref name=tnyt>{{cite news|author=McKendrick, Neil|title=Sex and the Married Victorians|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/25/specials/gay-volume1.html|access-date=26 June 2011|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=8 January 1984}}</ref> She has argued that society often defines sexuality through a male heterosexual perspective.<ref name=thc>{{cite news|last=Green|first=Elizabeth|title=Fifteen Questions For Carol J. Adams|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/10/2/fifteen-questions-for-carol-j-adams/|access-date=26 June 2011|newspaper=The Harvard Crimson|date=2 October 2003}}</ref>
In addition to her career as a scholar, she has been active as an advocate of [[Anti-war movement|anti-war]] and [[LGBT]] causes.<ref name=tmd>{{cite news|title='U' Profs Sign Letter in National Anti-War Push|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AgRKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YB4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=3391,2420278&dq=martha-vicinus&hl=en|access-date=26 June 2011|newspaper=The Michigan Daily|date=13 March 2003}}</ref><ref name=tmd2>{{cite news|title=Gay, Transgender Community Critique Task Force Proposals|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lgNKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WR4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=2054,2806913&dq=martha-vicinus&hl=en|access-date=26 June 2011|newspaper=The Michigan Daily|date=27 October 2004}}</ref>
==Selected works==
* Coeditor, with Caroline Eisner. ''Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008. {{ISBN|9780472900480}}. * ''Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. {{ISBN|9780226855639}}. * Editor. ''Lesbian Subjects: A Feminist Studies Reader''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|9780253330604}}. * Coeditor, with [[Martin Bauml Duberman]] and [[George Chauncey|George Chauncey, Jr.]] ''Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past''. New York: New American Library, 1989. {{ISBN|9780452010673}}. * Coeditor, with Bea Nergaard, ''Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale: Selected Letters''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. {{ISBN|9780674270206}}. * ''Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850-1920.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. {{ISBN|9780226855677}}. * ''The Ambiguities of Self-Help: Concerning the Life and Work of the Lancashire Dialect Writer Edwin Waugh''. Littleborough: George Kelsall, 1984. {{ISBN|9780946571000}}. * ''A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women''. London: Methuen, 1977. {{ISBN|9780253365408}}. * ''Broadsides of the Industrial North''. Newcastle upon Tyne: F. Graham, 1975. {{ISBN|9780859830638}}. * ''The Industrial Muse: A Study of Nineteenth-Century British Working-Class Literature''. London: Croom Helm, 1974. {{ISBN|9780856641312}}. * Editor. ''Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972. Oxon: Routledge, 2013. {{ISBN|9781135045265}}. * ''The Lowly Harp: A Study of 19th Century Working Class Poetry''. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1969.
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vicinus, Martha}} [[Category:1939 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Northwestern University alumni]] [[Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni]] [[Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni]] [[Category:Indiana University faculty]] [[Category:University of Michigan faculty]] [[Category:American academics of women's studies]] [[Category:Writers from Michigan]] [[Category:Writers from Wisconsin]] [[Category:Historians of LGBTQ topics]] [[Category:American historians]]