Sharon Jansen

English Department

lewis_queen

Phone: 253-535-7321

Website: http://sharonljansen.com/

  • Professional
  • Biography

Education

  • Ph.D., English, University of Washington, 1980
  • M.A., English, University of Washington

Areas of Emphasis or Expertise

  • Medieval literature
  • Early-modern history, politics, and literature
  • Women’s literature, in particular writing by medieval women, early-modern women, and feminist texts from the fifteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries (from Christine de Pizan through Caroline Norton)

Books

  • A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (author Mary Astell, editor Sharon L. Jansen) (Saltar's Point Press 2014) : View Book
  • Some Reflections upon Marriage (author Mary Astell, editor Sharon L. Jansen) (Saltar's Point Press 2014) : View Book
  • Anne of France: Lessons for my Daughter (Paperback) (Boydell & Brewer Inc 2012) : View Book
  • Reading Women's Worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing: A Guide to Six Centuries of Women Writers Imagining Rooms of Their Own (Palgrave Macmillan 2011) : View Book
  • The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Queenship and Power) (Palgrave Macmillan 2009) : View Book
  • Debating Women, Politics, and Power in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) : View Book
  • Anne of France: Lessons for my Daughter (Hardcover) (Boydell & Brewer Inc 2004) : View Book
  • The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2002) : View Book
  • Dangerous Talk and Strange Behavior: Women and Popular Resistance to the Reforms of Henry VIII (St. Martin's Press 1996) : View Book
  • Political Protest and Prophecy under Henry VIII (Boydell & Brewer Inc 1991) : View Book
  • The Welles Anthology: (Ms. Rawlinson C.813): A Critical Edition co-authored with Kathleen H. Jordan (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (Book 75) 1991) : View Book

Accolades

  • PLU Faculty Excellence Award for Outstanding Achievements in Teaching, Scholarship, and Service - 1997

Biography

Sharon L. Jansen taught English literature and writing at PLU from 1980 to 2014. Although trained as a medievalist, she taught a broad range of literature, from Homer’s Iliad through Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Doris Lessing’s The Cleft. While teaching research and writing as well as advanced composition, her real attention was devoted to first-year writing seminars, on such topics as “Mothers and Daughters,” “Women and the Beauty Myth,” and “Barbie, Bratz, and Bella: The Construction of Girlhood in the Twenty-First Century.” Over the years she also taught in a number of cross-disciplinary programs, including Integrated Studies, Languages across the Curriculum, and, in particular, Women’s and Gender Studies.
During her thirty-five years at PLU, she published seven books, on topics ranging from political protest during the reign of Henry VIII to the early-modern debate about women and politics and a survey of six centuries’ of literature by women imagining rooms of their own. She also published critical articles in scholarly journals, personal essays in anthologies, newspaper op-eds, online political commentary, and a variety of pieces for campus publications.
Entering phased retirement in 2014, she is now producing a series of early feminist texts intended for classroom use; the first two volumes, Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies and Some Reflections upon Marriage, were published in 2014. She is also working on a women’s history project, The Monstrous Regiment of Women, set to begin online publication on 1 January 2015.
To access Professor Jansen’s newest projects, to view her published work, and to read occasional essays on women and politics, women and popular culture, and women and food, visit her website: www.sharonljansen.com.To check in on her new women’s history project, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: A Women’s History Daybook, visit www.monstrousregimentofwomen.com.