Elif Armbruster, PhD

Research Interests

• American Realism (1870-1920)
• Women’s Writing
• Literary Activism
• Multi-Ethnic Literature
• American Autobiography and Biography

Publications

Books

• Domestic Biographies: Stowe, Howells, James, and Wharton at Home. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.

Essays and Book Chapters

• Armbruster, E. S., Goldman-Price, I., et al. “A Roundtable on Using Edith Wharton’s Letters.” Edith Wharton Review, forthcoming 2026.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2025). “Louisa May Alcott’s Literary Activism: A Realist Reading of Hospital Sketches. Lauren Heymeyer (Ed.), Beyond Little Women: Essays on Louisa May Alcott’s Secondary Works. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2024). “Dreaming with Wharton.” Edith Wharton Review. Vol. 40, Nos. 1-2, pp. 126-133.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2023). "The Racial Swamps of Reconstruction: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life in Post-Civil War Florida." Journal of International Women's Studies. Vol. 25:7, No 4.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2021)."Teaching the #MeToo Memoir: Creating Empathy in the First-Year College Classroom." Mary Holland and Heather Hewett (Eds.), #MeToo and Literary Studies: Reading, Teaching, and Writing about Sexual Violence and Rape Culture (pp. 310-321). London: Bloomsbury U.K.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2021). "Reading in Three Dimensions: Using Material Culture to Teach The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence." Ferda Asya (Ed.), Teaching Edith Wharton's Major Novels and Short Fiction (pp. 17-29). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2020). "Ants Become Giants: The Pioneering Perspective of Laura Ingalls in the Little House Books." Dewey Hall and Jillmarie Murphy (Eds.), Gendered Ecologies: New Materialist Interpretations of Women Writers in the Long Nineteenth Century (pp. 157-170). Clemson, South Carolina: Clemson University Press & Oxford University Press.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2019). "A Wilder Approach: Recovering Laura Ingalls Wilder in 2017" Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 132-135.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2019). "Dwelling in American Realism." Keith Newlin (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Realism (pp. 411-426). New York: Oxford UP.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2019). "'More Than Grassy Hills': Land, Perspective, and Female Identity in Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder." Anne Phillips and Miranda Green-Barteet (Eds.), Reconsidering Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House and Beyond (pp. 119-132). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
• Armbruster, E. S. (2017). "'Like Patterns Stenciled on a Wall': Edith Wharton's Decoration of Fictional Houses." Myrto Drizou (Ed.), Edith Wharton: Critical Insights (pp. 81-95). Ipswich MA: Salem Press.
• Armbruster, E. (2017). "A Biography of Edith Wharton." Myrto Drizou (Ed.), Edith Wharton: Critical Insights (pp. xxix-xxxvi). Ipswich, MA: Salem Press.

Trade Editions of Classics

• "Introduction," "Chronology," "Notes," and "Based on the Book." Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Reprint; New York: Barnes & Noble Publishing, 2012.
• "Introduction." Edith Wharton, Summer (1917). Reprint; New York: Barnes & Noble Publishing, 2006.

Select Presentations

• Armbruster, E. S. “Rebel Girls, Nasty Women, and a New American Literary Canon.” From invisibility to (re-)formation: female and lesbian perspectives on the fashioning of the canon / De l’invisibilité à la (re)définition : présences féminines et lesbiennes dans la fabrique du canon. Université of Paris - La Sorbonne. June 20, 2025. 
• Armbruster, E. S. “‘It Girl’ to ‘Girl’s Girl’: The Renaissance of Edith Wharton, 2025 Edition.” Edith Wharton and Popular Culture. American Literature Association Conference, Boston, MA. May 22, 2025. 
• Armbruster, E. S. “Final Words and Last Letters: The Emotional Reality of Edith Wharton,” Edith Wharton and Emotion. American Literature Association Conference, Chicago, IL. May 24, 2024. 

Work in Progress

• Sisters by Design: The Intertwined Lives of Edith Wharton, Minnie Jones, and Beatrix Farrand.