My research focuses on women writers of the early-to-mid 20th century whose work engages with ordinary, gendered embodied experiences like food and fashion. My objects of study include the works of literary writers like Eileen Chang, MFK Fisher, and Assia Djebar, as well as popular cookbooks, food journalism, and home economics manuals by women like Irma Rombauer, Mary Brooks Picken, and Mimi Sheraton. I also collect 1930s – 1940s issues of women’s magazines like McCall’s and Woman’s Home Companion and write about serialized fiction and mid-century advertising practices aimed at women.
Recent conference presentations include:
- “Who’s That Woman?: Follies and the Queer Self” at the Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference 2019
- “The politics of the private in Eileen Chang’s Aloeswood Incense” at the Northeast MLA Conference 2019
- “‘Labor-saving’ for whom?: working on the white body in 1930s magazine advertising” at the Pop Culture Association / American Culture Association Conference 2019
- “Who’s That Woman?: Reconstructing Follies” at Backward Glances 2019
I collect and comment on excerpts from midcentury women’s print culture at my blog, Homemakers’ Chat.
Jessie Roy 