Sheila Cordner
Senior Lecturer, Humanities
Sheila Cordner is a literature scholar and writer. Her publications include a scholarly book exploring nineteenth-century authors’ innovative ideas about education, a children’s book introducing young readers to a diverse range of classic authors, and many academic essays. She has been invited to share her research with local audiences—including Boston’s Huntington Theatre, the Massachusetts chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and the Victorian Literature and Culture seminar at Harvard—as well as presenting at international conferences in Italy, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom. In the classroom, her students have collaborated with numerous organizations through community-engaged learning projects, most recently with We Need Diverse Books, Hale House, and WBUR’s children’s podcast festival.
Teaching Interests
Community-Engaged Learning; Children’s Literature; Writing; Theater; Victorian Literature; Modern British and Irish Literature; Film
Research Interests
Victorian Literature; History of Education; Children’s Literature; Modern British and Irish Literature; Women’s and Gender Studies
Website: www.sheilacordner.com
Read her letter in The New York Times about the long tradition of self-taught writers.
Read BU Today’s profile on her children’s book and her point of view on children’s book authors Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss.
Read more on Sheila Cordner’s teaching: “Deepening Students’ Connection to the Humanities through Service Learning” and “Great Books, Good Works”
Selected Publications
Books
Education in Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Exclusion as Innovation. (Routledge, 2016).
Who’s Hiding in This Book? Meet Ten Famous Authors. (Pierce Press, 2019).
Articles
Women’s Education. In Oxford Bibliographies in Victorian Literature. Edited by Lisa Rodensky. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
“POV: Revising Roald Dahl’s Classic Children’s Books is a ‘Dangerous Portent of Future Censorship,” BU Today (March 2022).
“POV: Why Halting Publication of Six Dr. Seuss Books is the Right Call,” BU Today (March 2021).
“Like Little Women, Books by Zitkála-Šá and Taha Hussein Are Classics,” The Conversation (December 2019).
Guest Editor, Special Issue of Impact on Community-Engaged Learning (July 2019).
“Learning the Liberal Arts Through Service,” Impact (July 2019).
“The Self-Taught Tradition Among British Authors,” The New York Times, Letter to the Editor.
Review of Konstantina Georganta, Conversing Identities: Encounters Between British, Irish and Greek Poetry, 1922-1952. Comparative Literature Studies 52.3 (Summer 2015).
“Radical Education in Aurora Leigh,” Victorian Review 41.1 (Spring 2015).
“Victorian Reading across the Lines and off the Page: Dickens’s Model of Multiple Literacies in Our Mutual Friend,” in Reading and the Victorians, edited by Juliet John and Matthew Bradley (Ashgate, 2015).
Selected Presentations
“Creating Experiential Learning in the Classroom: Perspectives from the Bridge Builders Program,” BU Faculty Forum. April 2024.
“Public Victorians,” Modern Language Association Conference. Seattle, January 2020.
“Individual in Community,” Invited workshop on Community-Based Learning for BU faculty, BU’s Center for Teaching and Learning. May 2018.
“An Evening at the Metcalf with Sheila Cordner,” Invited talk for the Boston University Women’s Guild. December 2017.
“Dickens and Education,” Dickens Symposium. Boston, July 2017.
“Gissing’s Self-Education at Home and Abroad,” North American Victorian Studies Association Supernumerary Conference. Florence, May 2017.
“Accidental Reading,” Northeast Victorian Studies Association Conference. University of Rhode Island, April 2015.
“Neither Inside Nor Outside in George Gissing,” Northeast Modern Language Association Conference. Toronto, April 2015.
“Transporting Cram,” Australasian Victorian Studies Conference. Hong Kong, July 2014.
“Jane Austen: Educational Outlier,” Invited talk, Jane Austen Society of North America Massachusetts Chapter. Boston, May 2014.
“Learning the Global through the Local in Aurora Leigh,” North American Victorian Studies Association Joint Conference with British Association of Victorian Studies and Australasian Victorian Studies Association. Venice, Italy. 2013.
“Literature, Service Learning, and the Engaged Humanities Roundtable,” Northeast Modern Language Association Conference. Boston. 2013.
“Learning the Liberal Arts through Service,” Invited talk, Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching, Boston University. 2012.
Guest Speaker for Educating Rita post-performance “Humanities Forum,” Invited talk, Huntington Theatre Company. Boston, 2011.
“Thomas Hardy’s Autodidacts,” Invited talk, Victorian Literature and Culture Seminar, Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University. 2011.
Other Professional Activity and/or Awards
Bridge Builders Faculty Fellow. 2022-2024.
Purple Dragonfly Book Award for Children’s Nonfiction, 2020.
Author of the Month, Boston Athenaeum, October 2017.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Learning Community Fellowship, BU, 2017-2018.
Publication Production Award, Boston University Center for the Humanities, 2015.
Arts Initiative Grant, Boston University Arts Initiative, 2014.
NINES (Nineteenth-century Scholarship Online) fellowship to the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, 2013.
HASTAC Scholar (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), 2012-2013.