Shelley Fisher Fishkin

Shelley Fisher Fishkin (born May 9, 1950) is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University.

Fishkin received her B.A. and M.Phil. in English, and her Ph.D. in American Studies, all from Yale University. Before teaching at Stanford University, she served as director of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale University and professor of American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.

Fishkin served as the president of the American Studies Association (2004-2005), and the president of Mark Twain Circle of America (1998-2000). She was also the co-founder of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society and a founding editor of the Journal of Transnational American Studies. A specialist in Mark Twain, Fishkin was awarded the John S. Tuckey award “for lifetime achievements and contributions to Mark Twain Studies" at the International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies in 2017.^[1]

Fishkin is the author, editor or co-editor of 46 books and has published 150 articles, essays, columns, and reviews.^[2]

She is the Director of Stanford's American Studies Program and Co-Director (with Gordon Chang) of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University. ^[3]

Fishkin rediscovered Mark Twain's 1898 play "Is He Dead?" in the archives of the Mark Twain Papers at the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley and published an edition of it in 2003. She was a producer of the play on Broadway, where it debuted in 2007, adapted by David Ives and directed by Michael Blakemore. ^{[4] [5]}

Selected Works

• From Fact to Fiction: Journalism and Imaginative Writing in America (Johns Hopkins, 1985)
• Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices (Oxford, 1993)
• Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture (Oxford, 1997)
• Feminist Engagements: Forays Into American Literature and Culture (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009)
• Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee (Rutgers University Press, 2015)
• editor, 29-volume Oxford Mark Twain (Oxford, 1996; Paperback reprint edition, 2009)
• editor, Oxford Historical Guide to Mark Twain (Oxford, 2002)
• editor, "Is He Dead? " A New Comedy by Mark Twain (University of California, 2003)
• editor, Mark Twain's Book of Animals (University of California Press, 2009)
• editor, The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on his Life and Work (Library of America, 2010)
• co-editor, Listening to Silences: New Essays in Feminist Criticism (Oxford, 1994)
• co-editor, People of the Book: Thirty Scholars Reflect on Their Jewish Identity (Wisconsin, 1996)
• co-editor, The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America (M.E. Sharpe, 1997)
• co-editor, Mark Twain at the Turn of the Century, 1890-1910 (Arizona Quarterly, 2005)
• co-editor, 'Sport of the Gods' and Other Essential Writing by Paul Laurence Dunbar (Random House, 2005)
• co-editor, Anthology of American Literature, ninth edition (Prentice-Hall, 2006)
• co-editor, Concise Anthology of American Literature, seventh edition (Prentice-Hall, 2011)
• co-editor, "Race and American Culture" - Oxford University Press Book Series (with Arnold Rampersad)

Selected awards and honors

• Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Research Book Award, National Journalism Scholarship Society (for From Fact to Fiction), 1986
• Choice "Outstanding Academic Title" (for Was Huck Black? and Feminist Engagements), 1993, 2009
• Harry H. Ransom Teaching Excellence Award, University Of Texas College Of Liberal Arts, 2000
• Lifetime Achievement Award in Literature, town of Westport, Connecticut, 2002
• President, American Studies Association, 2004-2005
• runner-up for the best book award in the general nonfiction category, London Book Festival, (for Writing America) 2015
• John S. Tuckey Award for lifetime achievements and contributions to Mark Twain Studies, 2017

References