Jean Sanborn
Title
Professor of English, Emerita
Information
Areas of Expertise
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The essay as a genre
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Composition in 19th-century colleges
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Gender issues in writing and in academic writing
- Alternative discourses
Personal Information
Jean Donovan Sanborn served as Director of the Farnham Writers’ Center, which she founded in 1984. Her primary interest is the essay, both the academic essay and creative non-fiction. Research on the history of the academic essay has led to a manuscript entitled “Weaving Writing,” which seeks to validate forms of academic writing other than the thesis/argument essay.
Related interests are feminist rhetoric, Bakhtinian theory, multiple intelligences, and the history of the essay genre rooted in Montaigne. She has twice served as Director of Colby in Cork and enjoys talking about Ireland.