Education:
Ph.D. (with distinction), Columbia University - 1997 (Comparative Literature)
Areas of Expertise:
Professor Acosta's teaching and research interests include Restoration and 18th-century literature; early modern women writers; critical theory of the 18th century; comparative literature of the Enlightenment (British, French, German, Spanish); libertine fiction; religion, science and enlightenment; dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Biblical translation and interpretation; peninsular and Latin American literature; utopias.
Books and Publications
"From Unnatural Fanatics to 'Fair Quakers': How English Mainstream Culture Transformed Women Friends between 1650 and 1740." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 31.4(Summer 2019). (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2019
"Pregnant Silence and Mystical Birth: Quaker Worship in the Seventeenth Century." Restoration: Studies in Literary Culture 1660-1700 43.1 (Spring 2019): 58-78. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2019
""Desde la reina en su trono hasta la artista en su taller." Soledad Acosta de Samper y La Mujer en la sociedad moderna." Voces diversas: Nuevas lecturas de Soledad Acosta de Samper. Carolina Alzate e Isabel Corpas de Posada, compiladoras. Bogotá: Insituto Caro y Cuervo y Ediciones Uniandes. (373-389) (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2016
"Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley." The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts (OEBART) Ed. Timothy Beal. New York: Oxford University Press. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2015
"Quakers, the Origins of the Peace Testimony and Resistance to War Taxes." War and Peace: Essays on Religion, Violence and Space. Ed. Bryan S. Turner. London: Anthem. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2013
Acosta, Ana M. and David L. Pike. Literature: A World of Writing; Poems, Stories, Drama, Essays, 2nd ed. Writing handbook and literature anthology. New York: Pearson Longman. (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2013
"Mary Wollstonecraft." The Dictionary of Women Interpreters of Scripture. Ed. Marion Ann Taylor. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic Press. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2010
Acosta, Ana M. and David L. Pike. Literature: A World of Writing. Longman: http://vigstage.pearsonhighered.com/showcase/pike1e (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2010
"The Sadeness of Scott's Utopia: Millenium Hall and The 120 Days of Sodom." Gender and Utopian Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Eds. Brenda Tooley and Nicole Pohl. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2007
Reading Genesis in the Long Eighteenth Century: From Milton to Mary Shelley. Aldershot (Hampshire), United Kingdom, and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate. (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2006
"Papist Hotbeds: Convents in the Literary Imagination of Eighteenth-Century Britain." Eighteenth-Century Fiction 15.3-4, April-July: 615-42. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2003
"Spaces of Dissent and the Public Sphere in Hackney and Newington Green." Eighteenth-Century Life 27.1, Winter: 1-27. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2003
"Conjectures and Speculations: Jean Astruc, Obstetrics and Biblical Criticism in Eighteenth-Century France." Eighteenth-Century Studies 35.2, Winter: 256-66. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2001
Awards, Honors and Fellowships
Tow Foundation Travel Fellowship. (Grants and Fellowships) 2013
Mellon Mid-Career Fellowship, Committee for the Study of Religion, CUNY Graduate Center. (Grants and Fellowships) 2011
Whiting Foundation Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities (Awards and Honors) 2002
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"'Thee' and 'Thou' and the Quaker Elimination of Social Hierarchy in Speech." Modern Language Association Annual Convention. New York, January 2018. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2018
"Empirical Metaphysics: Dreams Interiority and the Persistence of Ghosts." Interiority in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Britain. Rutgers British Studies Center, Rutgers University, Spring 2013. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2013
"Reading the Clouds." 39th Annual Meeting of the American Society for 18th Century Studies. Richmond, Va., March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2009
"Material Spirits." Department of English, Simon Fraser University. Vancouver, British Columbia, September. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
"Utopia in a Dumpster." 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Utopian Studies. Toronto, October. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007
"Anatomical Manipulations: Religious Iconography and Medical Modeling." 37th Annual Meeting of the American Society for 18th-Century Studies. Montreal, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2006
"The Ideal Body of Eighteenth-Century Waxworking." 29th Annual Meeting of the Society for Utopian Studies. Toronto, October. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2004
"Corporeal Machinery and Theatrical Anatomy." Comparative Studies in 18th-Century Literature Session on Artificial Intelligences, Automata, and Other Unnatural Subjects, Modern Languages Association Annual Convention. San Diego, December. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2003