Biography
Melissa Bailes is an associate professor of English specializing in British literature of the long eighteenth century (1660-1830) and the history of science. She especially works on natural history (including the fields of botany, zoology, and geology), as well as ideas about gender and empire as they relate to literature and the environment. Her first book, Questioning Nature: British Women’s Scientific Writing and Literary Originality, 1750-1830 (U Virginia P), won the 2017 Book Prize from the British Society for Literature and Science. Bailes's research has been supported by long-term fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the American Association of University Women, and the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.
EVST courses taught
Literature and the Anthropocene (ENLS 5010)