Signe Wegener

After receiving my Ph.D. from the University of Alabama in 1996, I have taught a variety of classes at UGA. My dissertation, on James Fenimore Cooper, Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Maria Sedgewick, Maria Cummins, Susan Warner, and the Cult of Domesticity, has ended up as a book, James Fenimore Cooper versus the Cult of Domesticity, which was published in 2005 by McFarland Publishers, Inc.I have in addition presented several papers on Cooper's texts, the latest two on Cooper's description of interiors as a measure of familial dysfunction, and of Natty Bumppo as a wilderness Sir Gawain (the latter with my friend Dr. Nanda Hopenwasser, U. of Alabama). My two latest publications have been articles on The Deerslayer and The Pioneers for books on James Fenimore Cooper. I am at present researching medieval Scandinavian mercenaries for an upcoming book.   I'm fond of Medieval and Early Modern Literature and History, and in Science Fiction, and have presented papers on topics ranging from Norse sagas to Scottish mercenaries in 17th Century Norway and Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels. With Dr. Hopenwasser, I have presented papers on Margery Kempe, St. Birgitta of Sweden, the Jewish mystic Hayyim Vital, and the 19th Century adventuress Loreta Janeta Velasquez. We have also collaborated on an article for the Alabama Heritage on Annie Wheeler, a short play about St. Birgitta and Margery Kempe, and an article about them for a book on comparative essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese women writer. Before coming to the U.S. from Norway, I taught English, German, Norwegian, Italian, and History, and translated novels, biographies, and graphic novels from English, French, Italian, Swedish, and Danish for a Norwegian publisher.