Jane Marcus is a writer, civil rights campaigner and Distinguished Professor of English at City College, New York. After winning a scholarship to Harvard, she became active in the Civil Rights movement and continues to be involved with issues of race within academic and daily life. She is also a noted feminist critic and a leading authority on the works of Virginia Woolf. Her many books include The Young Rebecca West: 1911-1917 (1982), Virginia Woolf and the Languages of Patriarchy (1987) and Art and Anger Reading Like a Woman (1988). She has taught at the University of Illinois in Chicago and worked towards the establishment of the Women's Studies programs at the University of Texas. Jane became involved with our University through her addresses to the Literary Society during her time as a Visiting Professor at Cambridge University.
In 1995 Jane Marcus was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters.
"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in awarding Jane Marcus an Honorary Doctor of Letters. Jane Marcus is a distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at the City College of New York. She was born into a working class Irish-American family and won a scholarship to Harvard University. An activist during the Civil Rights movement, she now works in an inner-city college where she is concerned with issues of race in academic work and daily life. Jane Marcus is the leading authority on Virginia Woolf in the United States and her pioneering work has done much to secure the reputation of Virginia Woolf as a serious intellectual. Among her many publications are 'Virginia Woolf and the Languages of Patriarchy', 'New Feminist Essays on Virginia Woolf', 'Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant' and 'Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury'. Jane Marcus has written extensively in the fields of Victorian Literature, Social History and Women's Studies. She has an international reputation for her radical revisions of literary Modernism and has written numerous scholarly articles on women writers. She has edited 'Suffrage and the Pankhursts' and 'The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-1917'. Jane Marcus' relationship with Anglia Polytechnic University began in her time as a visiting scholar in Cambridge (1993-94) when she addressed the Literary Society. She has continued to take a close interest in the University's research programme and its staff, students and academic work.
The Honorary Doctor of Letters is awarded by the Senate in recognition of Jane Marcus' distinction as an internationally respected scholar in the fields of English and Women's Studies."