Ph.D. Rutgers University
Professor, College of Staten Island. English

Hildegard Hoeller is interested in American fiction and culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, with emphasis on exploring texts by women and African-American writers. She particularly examies the role economics (from historical economic events and texts to gift theory to economic tropes) play in American novels. She also has a strong interest in a variety of literary traditions: sentimental writing, realism, naturalism, modernism, the Harlem Renaissance.

Selected Publications:

• Edith Wharton’s Dialogue with Realism and Sentimental Fiction. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.

• Norton Critical Edition of Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.

• “A Quilt for Life: Lydia Maria Child’s The American Frugal Housewife.” American Transcendental Quarterly 13.2 (June 1999), 89-104.

•  “Race, Plagiarism, and Modernism: The Case of Nella Larsen’s ‘Sanctuary’.” African-American Review. 40.3 (Fall 2006), 421-438.

• “Racial Currency: Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘The Gilded Six-Bits’ and the Gold Standard Debate,” American Literature. 77.4 (December 2005), 761-785.