Society of Scholars
The Society of Scholars is an intellectual community of humanists of diverse generations, academic ranks, and departmental affiliations who contribute to and learn from one another’s work. Each year, approximately eight faculty and three dissertation research fellowships support members of the Society of Scholars. Scholars in year-long residence at the University of Washington may be invited to participate as well. The group meets biweekly throughout the year to discuss their research in progress.
Apply for the Fellowship (Faculty)
2025 - 2026 Society of Scholars
2017 - 2018 Society of Scholars Fellow
Elizabeth Janssen (she/her/hers)
Terms and Conditions: Race, Literary Value, and US Reading Publics
My dissertation studies the role of literature and literary markets in mediating valuations of race and ethnicity in the US. It investigates a current trend in Anglophone fiction toward satirizing literary markets for ethnicity and how these novels negotiate the terms of their own receptions. Taking a sociologically-oriented approach, it also examines oft-overlooked agents of literary value-construction beyond text and reader (such as publishers, reviewers, book clubs, universities) who, by extension, contribute to constructions and valuations of race and ethnicity within specific reader-markets.