Rogers, Katharine M(unzer) 1932-

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ROGERS, Katharine M(unzer) 1932-

PERSONAL: Born June 6, 1932, in New York, NY; daughter of Martin (a business executive) and Jean (a psychiatrist; maiden name, Thompson) Munzer; married Kenneth C. Rogers (a college president and nuclear regulatory commissioner), August 4, 1956; children: Margaret, Christopher, Thomas. Education: Barnard College, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1952; Columbia University, Ph.D., 1957. Politics: Liberal. Hobbies and other interests: Natural history, water coloring.

ADDRESSES: Home and offıce—6202 Perthshire Ct., Bethesda, MD 20817-3348. E-mail—kayrogers@aol. com.

CAREER: Instructor in English at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 1954-55, and Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1955-57; Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY, instructor, 1958-64, assistant professor, 1965-70, associate professor, 1971-73, professor of English, 1974-89, member of doctoral faculty, 1972-89, professor emeritus, 1989—.

MEMBER: Author's Guild, Washington Area Secular Humanists, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge University, 1952-53.

WRITINGS:

The Troublesome Helpmate: A History of Misogyny in Literature, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 1966.

William Wycherley, Twayne (New York, NY), 1972.

(Editor) Signet Classic Book of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British Drama, New American Library (New York, NY), 1979.

(Editor) Before Their Time: Six Women Writers of the Eighteenth Century, Ungar (London, England), 1979.

(Editor) Selected Poems of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Ungar (London, England), 1979.

(Editor) Selected Writings of Samuel Johnson, New American Library (New York, NY), 1981.

Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1982.

(Coeditor) The Meridian Anthology of Early Women Writers: British Literary Women from Aphra Behn to Maria Edgeworth, 1660-1800, New American Library (New York, NY), 1987.

Frances Burney: The World of 'Female Diffıculties,' Harvester Wheatsheaf (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) The Meridian Anthology of Early American Women Writers: From Anne Bradstreet to Louisa May Alcott, 1650-1865, Meridian (New York, NY), 1991.

(Editor) The Meridian Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Plays by Women, Meridian (New York, NY), 1994.

The Cat and the Human Imagination: Feline Images from Bast to Garfield, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1998.

L. Frank Baum: The Royal Historian of Oz: A Biography, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor of scholarly articles to professional journals.

WORK IN PROGRESS: First Friend, a history of dogs and people.

SIDELIGHTS: Katharine M. Rogers once told CA: "My intense concern with the status of women (spurred by some deplorable experiences in my professional life—e.g., being deprived of academic tenure with each pregnancy) provided a driving motive for writing my first book. I [then became] concerned with how women of the past perceived themselves and their situations. To a surprising extent, they anticipated the insights of the Women's Liberation Movement of today. . . . Since my retirement, I have been pursuing long-term interests outside this field of specialization—cats, dogs, and L. Frank Baum, the author who enhanced my childhood. I'm still interested in women's issues, though: our attitudes toward cats and dogs reflect gender stereotypes, and Baum was an ardent feminist."

Rogers's involvement in women's issues spawned her efforts to establish women's studies programs at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center. Indeed, much of her writing has focused on women, including her first book, The Troublesome Helpmate: A History of Misogyny in Literature, and Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, published in 1982. Rogers's broad expertise in the arena of women and literature is clearly illuminated by the several anthologies on women authors she has edited, including writings and plays by British women and their American counterparts from as early as 1650. A Publishers Weekly reviewer described The Meridian Anthology of Early Women Writers: British Literary Women from Aphra Behn to Maria Edgeworth, 1660-1800, as offering "a fascinating view of women's roles, responsibilities and attitudes throughout the first two centuries of America's history."

Drawing on her talents as an English scholar and a childhood affinity for the Oz books, in 2002 Rogers published L. Frank Baum: The Royal Historian of Oz:A Biography. Bookreporter reviewer Kathy Weissman observed, "Rogers, an early Oz aficionado herself, combines a scholar's detachment with a child's delight." Weissman felt that Rogers is "particularly enlightening about Baum's feminism: his wife, Maud, was the daughter of a major figure in the fight for women's right to vote." A Kirkus Reviews contributor commented, "Rogers also pays attention to the unstressed importance Baum gives to the women and girls of his books, his avoidance of any 'punitive morality,' his digs at class snobbery and greed, and the value he placed on individualism." A Publishers Weekly critic called Rogers's analyses "enlightening and engaging."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Antioch Review, winter, 1983, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 123.

Belles Lettres, spring, 1992, review of Frances Burney: The World of 'Female Diffıculties,' p. 48.

Bloomsbury Review, January, 1999, review of The Cat and the Human Imagination: Feline Images from Bast to Garfield, p. 17.

Booklist, September 15, 2002, Sally Estes, review of L. Frank Baum: The Royal Historian of Oz: A Biography, p. 195.

Comparative Literature, spring, 1985, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 190.

Comparative Literature Studies, summer, 1985, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 270.

English Historical Review, April, 1985, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 415.

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, July, 1983, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 449.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2002, review of L. Frank Baum, p. 1108.

Library Journal, June 15, 1991, review of The Meridian Anthology of Early American Women Writers: From Anne Bradstreet to Louisa May Alcott, 1650-1865, p. 78; August, 2002, Edward Cone, review of L. Frank Baum, p. 96.

Literature and History, spring, 1984, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 124.

New York Times Book Review, October 25, 1998, review of The Cat and the Human Imagination, p. 37.

Philological Quarterly, spring, 1984, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 281.

Publishers Weekly, June 28, 1991, review of The Meridian Anthology of Early American Women Writers, p. 97; August 26, 2002, review of L. Frank Baum, p. 55.

Review of English Studies, August, 1985, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 432; May, 1993, Christine Salmon, review of Frances Burney: The World of 'Female Diffıculties.'

Times Literary Supplement, January 7, 1983, review of Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 20; March 29, 1991, review of Frances Burney, p. 6.