Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-Century Literature

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments A number of scholars have lent me time, advice, and sources over the years, including Janet Beer, Susan Castillo, Martin Kayman, Ian Scott, Jacquie Berben-Masi, Annette Bennington-McElhiney, Dianne Dutton, Monika Fludernik, and Greta Olson. I would like to thank Vivien Hughes and Michael Hellyer (retired) at the Canadian High Commission. Some of the research for this book has been made possible through the generous assistance of the Canadian government’s Faculty Research Program. I have benefited from presenting aspects of this book as conference papers or invited presentations in Oxford, Strasbourg, Nice, Aberystwyth, Cambridge, Reading, and Birmingham . Earlier versions of chapters of this monograph have appeared in the journals Cycnos, Journal of Indo-American Studies, Compar(a)ison , and Journal of American Studies, and in Monika Fludernik and Greta Olson’s In the Grip of the Law. Thanks are also extended to the anonymous readers who offered suggestions for improvements and amendments of the original manuscript. I thank my students at the University of Central Lancashire for their engaging, sometimes odd, and always thought-provoking responses to the texts that I teach and that find their way into this book. I am particularly indebted to my class Contemporary Women Writers (2002), who took opposing views of Affinity and other texts on women and the law. I thank my colleagues at the University of Central Lancashire. Without the university sabbatical I was awarded in January 2005, this book would not have been completed. Specific mention goes to Will Kaufman and Alan Rice, for reading drafts of chapters or grant applications ; and to Janice Wardle and Daniel Lamont for support, intellectual debate, and much-needed cups of coffee. Final thanks go to my family: Judy Clayton, Amy Northrop, Bob Slettedahl, Jill Winter, and most importantly, Allan Macpherson, for love and support. x Acknowledgments ...