Kristin Bluemel, Ph.D., interim associate dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, professor of English, and Wayne D. McMurray Endowed Chair in the Humanities, recently published a chapter on “Orwell and Feminism” in the “Oxford Handbook of George Orwell” (Oxford University Press, 2025).
The Oxford Handbooks consist of specially commissioned essays from leading figures in a wide array of disciplines and give critical examinations of the progress and direction of scholarly debates, as well as provide foundations for future research. The “Oxford Handbook on Orwell” is meant to serve as a core reference book for specialist and general readers of Orwell. Ranging over the full scope of Orwell’s output, from the instantly recognizable “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” to his lesser known novels, essays, diaries, columns, letters, and reviews, it features 48 chapters written by an international group of contributors who hope to ensure his work will be read and debated for years to come.
Bluemel is author of “George Orwell and the Radical Eccentrics: Intermodernism in Literary London” (Palgrave 2004) and other feminist studies on modernism, interwar, and wartime British writers and artists. In 2022, Bluemel was invited to speak to members of The Orwell Society on the topic of Orwell and Feminism.