Patricia Yaeger papers (Ms.2017.017)

Biographical/Historical note

Patricia Yaeger received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1971 and her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1980. She taught at Williams College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University, until she joined the University of Michigan faculty as an associate professor in 1990, where she was promoted to professor in 1999. Yaeger was named the Henry Simmons Frieze Collegiate Professor of English and Women's Studies in 2005. She was also editor of the Publications of the Modern Language Association from 2006 – 2011. Yaeger’s scholarship focused on English and women studies, culture of the American south, trauma, and environmental humanities. Among her published works are “Honey-Mad Women: Emancipatory Strategies in Women's Writing” (1988), “The Geography of Identity” (1996), and “Dirt and Desire: Reconstructing Southern Women's Writing 1930-1990” (2000). She was researching “female sublime” until July 25, 2014, when she passed away of ovarian cancer.