Pruitt, Virginia D. 1943- (Virginia Pruitt)

PERSONAL:

Born May 8, 1943, in Rochester, MN; daughter of Raymond D. (a cardiologist and medical school dean) and Lillian (a homemaker) Pruitt; married Ronald L. Molloy (a physician; divorced, 1973). Ethnicity: "Caucasian; Scandinavian, British, German." Education: St. Olaf College, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1965; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, M.A., 1966; University of Virginia, Ph.D., 1974. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Protestant.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Topeka, KS. Office—Department of English, Washburn University, Topeka, KS 66621. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Teacher at a private college preparatory school for girls in Memphis, TN, 1966-68; University of Memphis, Memphis, instructor in English, 1968-71; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, instructor in English, 1972-74; Washburn University, Topeka, KS, assistant professor, 1974-79, associate professor, 1979-83, professor of English, 1983—.

MEMBER:

Popular Culture Association, American Association of University Professors, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1978 and 1981.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction, with Howard J. Faulkner) The Selected Correspondence of Karl A. Menninger, 1919-1945, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1989.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Howard J. Faulkner) The Selected Correspondence of Karl A. Menninger, 1946-1965, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MS), 1995.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Howard J. Faulkner) Dear Dr. Menninger: Women's Voices from the Thirties, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MS), 1997.

(Editor and author of introduction, with Howard J. Faulkner) Betina Jelliffe, For Dear Life and Selected Short Stories, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies, edited by Richard Finneran, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1983. Contributor to periodicals, including Yeats Eliot Review, Eire-Ireland, Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Studies in Short Fiction, American Imago, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Colby Library Quarterly, Psychoanalytic Review, and Explicator.

SIDELIGHTS:

Virginia D. Pruitt told CA: "My desire to explore and explain human psychodynamics and behavior has driven all of my writing projects. The fulfillment of this desire was abetted by the presence in Topeka of the Menninger Clinic. I particularly benefited from Menninger's library and from the easy availability of experts in the psychiatric and psychoanalytic areas. Moreover, Dr. Karl Menninger, cofounder of the clinic, was an enthusiastic and invaluable resource in respect to the compilation and ultimate publication of his selected professional correspondence."