94-05-04 U.Va. English Professor Deborah McDowell Named Woodrow Wilson Fellow

U.VA. ENGLISH PROFESSOR DEBORAH MCDOWELL
NAMED WOODROW WILSON FELLOW

     CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., May 4 -- Deborah E. McDowell,
professor of English at the University of Virginia, was recently
named a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars.  One of 32 fellows chosen for the 1994-5 academic year,
McDowell was selected out of 819 applicants worldwide from
government, business, media, the arts and academia.
     Fellows were chosen based on their past achievements and the
quality of research proposed in their applications.  The project
McDowell will pursue at the center is an in-depth study on
violence, mourning and loss in literature, film and the graphic
arts.
     McDowell joined U.Va.'s English department in 1987 after
teaching at Colby College.  A specialist in American and African-
American literature, she has written two books, "`The Changing
Same:'  Studies in Fiction by Black Women" and "Slavery and the
Literary Imagination," and has contributed to several scholastic
journals.  She was founding editor of Beacon Press' Black Woman
Writers Series and served on the Modern Language Association's
commission on the status of women.
     Created by Congress in 1968, the Washington, D.C., center
seeks to advance the concerns of President Woodrow Wilson by
incorporating scholarship into the public policy-making process.

                               ###
                                                      May 3, 1994

     FOR INTERVIEWS Deborah McDowell may be reached at (804) 924-
6661 or 924-7105.

Karen A. Castle
University News Office
kac@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu
(804) 924-7116


[Submitted by: Karen A. Castle  (kac@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu)
               Wed, 4 May 94 09:22:42 EDT]