Dr. Emily VanDette, Ph.D.

Dr. Emily E. VanDette is a Professor of English at Fredonia, where she teaches American literature courses as well as general education courses in women's literature and animal studies. She is interested in the transformative power of literature, and is dedicated to the recovery of women authors of the 19th-century.

Teaching Interests

Dr. VanDette's teaching areas include: 19th-century U.S. Literature, Women's Literature, Reform Literature, Animal Studies.

Research Interests

Dr. VanDette's main area of research is 19th-century U.S. women's literature.

Awards and Honors

  • Quarry Farm Fellowship, Center for Mark Twain Studies, Center for Mark Twain Studies (2017).
  • Helen F. Faust Women Writers Research Travel Award, Penn State University Libraries (2013).
  • NEH Summer Stipend Award, National Endowment for the Humanities (2012).

Professional Membership

  • Society for the Study of American Women Writers
  • Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society

Intellectual Contributions

  • "Trixy, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps," Northwestern University Press (2019).
  • "“Mark Twain’s Critique of Human Exceptionalism: Vivisection and the Descent of Man,” in Mark Twain and Philosophy, ed. by Alan Goldman and Jacob Held," Rowman Littlefield (2017).