People
PAMW Faculty
Wendy Olmsted
Professor
New Collegiate Division
Humanities Division
Affiliated Faculty, Classics (PAMW)
Chair: Fundamentals, Issues & Texts
HMW 601
1116 East 59th Street
The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, 60637
wrolmste@uchicago.edu
Education:
1974: Ph.D. Committee on Social Thought, The University of Chicago
1966: M.A. Committee on General Studies in Humanities, The University of Chicago
1965: B. A. magna cum laude, Bryn Mawr College.
Teaching Experience
2006+Professor, New Collegiate Division, Humanities Division, Affiliated Department of Classics (PAMW)
2005-2006 Associate Professor, New Collegiate Division, Humanities Division, Affiliated Department of Classics (PAMW)
1995 + Associate Professor, New Collegiate Division and Humanities Division, Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World, The University of Chicago
1979 + Associate Professor with indefinite tenure, New Collegiate Division and Humanities Division, Committee on Ideas & Method, The University of Chicago
1974-79 Assistant Professor, New Collegiate Division, Committee on Ideas and Methods and the Humanities Divison, The University of Chicago
1970-74 Instructor, The College, The University of Chicago
1969-70 Lecturer, The College, The University of Chicago
Research:
Books, Volumes Co-Edited, and Theses
The Imperfect Friend: Emotion and Rhetoric in Sidney, Milton, and their Contexts. Toronto University Press, May, 2008.
Rhetoric: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism. Co-edited with Walter Jost. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, paper 2006.
"Analogies by Thought Supplied": A Rhetoric of Simile, Comparison, and Allegory in Epic (in manuscript)
Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry. Co-edited with Walter Jost. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Articles in Refereed Journals and Chapters in Edited Volumes
"The Gentle Doctor: Renaissance/Reformation Emotion, Rhetoric, and Friendship in Sidney's Old Arcadia," Modern Philology, November, 2005.
"Introduction" (with Walter Jost) in A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism. Ed. Walter Jost and Wendy Olmsted. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, xv-xvi, 1-3, 169-72, 309-10, 389-92.
"Exemplifying Deliberation: Cicero's De Officiis and Machiavelli's Prince" in A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism. Ed. Walter Jost and Wendy Olmsted. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 173-89.
"Elizabethan Rhetoric, Ideology, and Britomart's Sorrow by the Sea," Exemplaria 14 (Spring, 2002).
"Introductory essay" (with Walter Jost) in Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, 1-7, 11-14, 131-35, 219-222, 301-304.
"Invention, Emotion, and Conversion in Augustine's Confessions," Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry, ed. Walter Jost and Wendy Olmsted. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, 65-86.
"On the Margins of Otherness: Metamorphosis and Identity in Homer, Ovid, Sidney, and Milton," New Literary History 27 (Spring, 1996), 167-84.
"Deconstruction and Spenser's Allegory," Spenser Studies, XI (1994), 111-27.
"The Uses of Rhetoric: Indeterminacy in Legal Reasoning, Practical Thinking, and the Interpretation of Literary Figures." Philosophy and Rhetoric, 24 (1991). Reprinted in Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in our Time, ed. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, 235-53.
"Philosophical Inquiry and Religious Transformation in Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy and Augustine's Confessions," The Journal of Religion 69 (1989), pp. 14-35.
Reviews
Kevin Pask: The Emergence of the English Author, Modern Philology, 97, 3 (February 2000), 455-59.
Edward Berry, The Making of Sir Philip Sidney, Sixteenth-Century Studies Journal, 30, 2 (Summer, 1999), 624-26.
William C. Johnson, Spenser's Amoretti: Analogies of Love, The Sixteenth Century Journal 22 (1991), 566.
Recent Invited Lectures and Papers
"Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears": Poetic Psychology and Protestant Internationalism," Paper for the session on Sidney and Internationalism, The International Sidney Society, Renaissance Society of America Conference, Chicago, April, 2008.
"Hospitable Interchanges: Comfort, Counsel, and Friendship in Sidney’s New Arcadia, Paper for the Sidney Session, 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May, 2007.
" The Rhetorical Production of Factional Emotion: Anger and Enmity in Sidney’s New Arcadia," Renaissance Society of America, San Francisco, March, 2006.
"An ‘Accompanable Solitariness’ and a ‘Civil Wildness’ in Sidney’s New Arcadia," Renaissance Workshop, The University of Chicago, February 6, 2006.
"Dead Pitiless Laws": Law and Emotion in Sidney’s Old Arcadia, 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May, 2005.
"Tradition and Invention: Bacon’s Aphorisms and the Essays," Renaissance Workshop, The University of Chicago, February, 2005.
"The Gentle Doctor: Renaissance/Reformation Emotion, Friendship, and Rhetoric in Sidney’s Old Arcadia," Renaissance Workshop, The University of Chicago, November, 2003.
Respondent to Papers: The Open Sidney Session, Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May, 2002.
"Cultural Transformation and Tropes of Disguise in Ancient and Renaissance Epic," invited lecture delivered to the Center for Literary and Cultural Change, University of Virginia, September 20, 1994.
"Imitation and Representation in the Rhetoric of Sir Philip Sidney," Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Toronto, 1994.
"Tyranny and the Social Construction of Compassion in Sidney's Arcadia and Defence," Comparative Literature Conference, University of California at Berkeley, 1992.
"Indeterminacy in Spenser's Allegory," Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, 1990.
"Sidney's Defence: Poetry, Action, and Circumstance," Language and Thought Workshop, The University of Chicago, 1990.
Significant Service to the University
1977 Provost and President's Search Committee for Dean of the College
1978-81 Program Chairman, PERL (Politics, Economics, Rhetoric and Law)
1980-83 Master, New Collegiate Division, Associate Dean of the College
1985-87 Program Chairman, PERL (Politics, Economics, Rhetoric and Law)
1988-92, 98-99, 2003-6- College Council, The University of Chicago
1989-90 Co-Chair, Selection Committee for Mellon and Harper Fellows in the
Humanities Collegiate Division, The University of Chicago
1990-95 College Committee on Admissions and Enrollment
1988-2000 Curriculum Committee, College of The University of Chicago
1989-90 Committee on the College Symposium for the Centennial, The University of Chicago
1996-99 Alternate, College Council
1999- Chair of Committee on Admissions and Enrollment: the College
1999- 2004 Executive Committee Beta Chapter Phi Beta Kappa
2000- Chair: Fundamentals Major
2001 Provost and President's Search Committee for Dean of the College
2002 Whiting Post-Doctoral Fellowship Selection Committee---Humanities Division
2003-2006 College Council
2004- 6 Committee of the College Council
2006 Admissions Committee: Department of Classics
Honors and Awards
1965-70 University Fellow, The University of Chicago
1967-8 Teaching Assistant, Liberal Arts I (pilot for Danforth Fellows project)
1999 Honorary Member: Phi Beta Kappa
Professional Activity and Affiliations
1988 Consultant and Lecturer on Milton's Paradise Lost for NEH, University of Wisconsin at Green Bay
1988 Reader for Young Scholars Competition, NEH
Professional Associations and Campus Workshops
Ancient Societies Workshop
English Renaissance Workshop
International Society for the History of Rhetoric
Kalamazoo Medieval and Renaissance Conference
Language and Thought Workshop, Faculty Adviser (1989-92)
Modern Languages Association
Renaissance Society of America
Educational and Research Consultant - National Endowment for the Humanities 1988