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Scholar and Writer

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Wendy C. Nielsen earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis and is currently Professor of English at Montclair State University. Her interest in solving why certain figures recur in British, French, and German literature and culture is exemplified in the books Women Warriors in Romantic Drama and Motherless Creations: Fictions of Artificial Life, 1650-1890. She has published scholarly essays on world literature, Romantic-era automata, theater, the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Olympe de Gouges, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte Corday, and Boadicea.

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MOTHERLESS CREATIONS: FICTIONS OF ARTIFICIAL LIFE, 1650-1890

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Wendy C. Nielsen's latest project examines motherless creations in American, British, French, and German literature: Pygmalion’s statue, Frankenstein’s creature, homunculi, automata, androids, golems, and steam men. This book explains the elimination of maternal characters in Western speculative fiction before 1890.

Motherless Creations: Fictions of Artificial Life, 1650-1890

George O. Bedford, "Dederick's Steam Man" (1868)

Courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/2a1096e0-2289-0132-b3b6-58d385a7bbd0