Nancy J. Peterson

Professor // English
Affiliated Faculty // American Studies // SIS
Affiliated Faculty // Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies // SIS
Affiliated Faculty // Native American and Indigenous Studies // SIS

Research Focus

American literature and culture; multicultural literature and Native American studies; women's literature and feminist theory; critical pedagogy

Office and Contact

Room: SC 280

Email: njp@purdue.edu

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991

Biography

Nancy J. Peterson, Professor Emerita of English and American Studies, focuses on contemporary American literature and culture in her research, with a particular interest in ethnic studies and multicultural literature. She is the author of Beloved: Character Studies (Continuum, 2008) and Against Amnesia: Contemporary Women Writers and the Crises of Historical Memory (U of Pennsylvania P, 2001), and is the editor of Conversations with Sherman Alexie (UP of Mississippi, 2009) and Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches (Johns Hopkins UP, 1997). Her most recent publication is a co-edited collection (with Connie Jacobs) titled Louise Erdrich's Justice Trilogy: Cultural and Critical Contexts (Michigan State UP, 2021), which won the 2022 Carter Revard Legacy Award for Best Edited Collection from the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures. Her current research projects include an essay on teaching Native food sovereignty through literature and a chapter on Natalie Diaz's eco-poetics. Her teaching at Purdue has been recognized with several awards, including being named to Purdue's Book of Great Teachers in 2013.