Annette Kolodny

Annette Kolodny (born 21 August 1941, New Yourk, N.Y., U.S.) is a feminist literary critic and activist, and currently holds the position of College of Humanities Professor Emerita of American Literature and Culture at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her major scholarly writings examine the experiences of women on the American frontiers and the projection of female imagery onto the American landscape. Her other writings examine some aspects of feminism after the 1960s; the revision of dominant themes in American studies; and the problems faced by women and minorities in the American academy.

Capping what was already a long and distinguished career, in 2012 Annette Kolodny published "In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery" (Duke University Press). The influential magazine "Indian Country Today" immediately named it as one of the twelve most important books in Native American Studies published in 2012. The Western Literature Association awarded the book the Thomas Lyon Prize as "the best book in Western literary and cultural studies published in 2012." Professor Kolodny had earlier made her mark in the field of Native American Studies with the publication of the long lost 1893 masterpiece of Native American literature, Joseph Nicolar's "The Life and Traditions of the Red Man" (Duke University Press 2007). This new edition included an interpretive analysis of Nicolar's text as well as a fascinating history of the Penobscot Nation in Maine. These two latest books mark the culmination of a scholarly career that began with studies of the American frontiers and moved into breakthrough examinations of trans-Atlantic contacts between Europeans and Native Americans.

Kolodny was born in New York City to Esther Rifkind Kolodny and David Kolodny. (Jay 211) She did her undergraduate work at Brooklyn College, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa magna cum laude in 1962. After graduation, she took a position on the editorial staff at Newsweek. Kolodny left to return to graduate studies in 1964, citing a desire “to teach people to think critically and because she wanted to be able to publish her own ideas, not merely report the ideas of others." (211) Her M.A. and Ph.D. work were completed at the University of California, Berkeley, and she earned the latter degree in 1969. (Leitch 2143) Her first teaching position at Yale University was cut short as she left after a year to move to Canada with her husband, whose draft board appeal for conscientious objector status for the duration of the Vietnam War was rejected. (2143) Finding a position at the University of British Columbia, she helped develop western Canada’s first accredited interdisciplinary women’s studies program before returning to the United States in 1974 to teach at the University of New Hampshire. (Jay 212)

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