Profile
In addition to her teaching at The New School, Margaret Boe Birns is also Adjunct Assistant Professor, SPS, NYU, where she received an award for Excellence in Teaching. She was also named Finalist for Distinguished University Teaching Award, The New School, 2011.
She has given talks or papers at The Harmonie Club, NYUSPS Great Lecture Series, Brotherhood Synagogue, Mint Theater post-performance discussion, Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on World War II, The American Names Society, The Shakespeare Club, and ING Corporation Learning at Lunch Lectures.
She has published articles on authors including Anthony Powell, Roberto Bolaño, Agatha Christie, William Faulkner, Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen, Susan Sontag, William James, and Henrik Ibsen and has published poetry in the Journal of Popular Film and Television, Rolling Stone, Art Times, and Women Poems #3.
Her areas of teaching expertise include: English, American, and European Literature of the 20th-21st Century; The Mystery Novel; Contemporary English and American Literature; Contemporary World Literature; The Short Story; and The Nineteenth Century Novel (English, American, European), Eco-fiction.
Degrees Held
Depauw University
Bristol University, UK
Columbia University
Professional Affiliation
Phi Beta Kappa
Recent Publications
"Anthony Powell's Secret Harmonies, Music in a Jungian Key, " re-published in Secret Harmonies, Journal of the Anthony Powell society, May 2018
“Detective Fiction and the Prose of Everyday Life: Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh,and Gladys Mitchell in the 1950s”, Nicholas Birns and Margaret Boe Birns, British fiction of the 1950s, edited by Dr. Alice Ferrebe, Bloomsbury Press, 2018.
"666 Twinned and Told Twice: Roberto's Bolaño 's Double Time Frame in 2666" in collection of essays on Robert Bolano, edited by Ignazio López-Calvo, University of California-Merced, forthcoming 2014
Magill's Literary Annual—2005-2013
Articles on: Tea Obreht, "The Tiger's Wife"; Bharati Mukherjee, "Miss New India"; Chris Adrian, "The Great Night"; Tom Perrotta, "The Leftovers"; Justin Cartwright, 'The Pursuit of Happiness"; Phillip Henscher, " Northern Clemency'"; Nancy Huston, "Fault Lines"; Kazuo Ishiguro, "When We Were Orphans"; Jane Gardam, "Old Filth"; Allegra Goodman, "Intuition"; Ian McEwan, "On Chesil Beach''; Richard Price, "Lush Life"; Gary Schteyngart, "Super Sad True Love Story"; Chang-Rae Lee, "The Surrendered"; Miguel Syjuco, "Illustrado"; Dan Chaon, "Await Your Reply"; Dai Sijie, "Once on a Moonless Night"; Marilynne Robinson, "Home "; Rawi Hage, "DeNiro's Game"; Zoe Heller, "The Believers"; Hitomi Kanehara,"Snakes and Earrings"
Great Lives from History Series: "Khaled Hosseini"; “Ray Barretto”; "Teresa Urrea"; "Susan Sontag”; "Carly Simon”; "Mark Helprin"
A Critical Companion to Henry James, edited by Kendall Johnson, Swarthmore College, Facts on File, 2010. Articles on William James; Robert Louis Stevenson; Henrik Anderse
Compendium of Twentieth Century Novelists and Novels, edited by Michael Sollars, 2007: “A.B. Yehoshua”; “Mr. Mani”; “Erich Maria Remarque”; “All Quiet on the Western Front”; “Jose Saramago”; “Blindness” “Gao Xingjian”; “Soul Mountain”
Studies in American Naturalism, 2006. Review of A New Book of The Grotesques: Contemporary Approaches to Sherwood Anderson’s Early Fiction, by Robert Dunne
Birns Nicholas, and Margaret Boe Birns “Agatha Christie: Modern and Modernist” The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and Contemporary Literary Theory , Walker and Frazer, editors, 1990
Ebsco Literary Resources Center, 2005-2006 50 biographical essays on European, American, English and Canadian authors
Journal of Canadian and Ethnic Studies, 2005 Review of A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews
Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, edited by Gabrille Cody, Columbia University Press, 2004: “John Van Druten”
The Dreiser Encyclopedia, edited by Keith Newlin, Garland Pub., 2004: “Burton Rascoe,” and “Sinclair Lewis”
The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature, edited by Steven. R. Serafin and Valerie Grosvenor Myer, Continuum, 2003: "Anita Brookner"; "Iris Murdoch"; "Agatha Christie"
"Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse, Feminism and National Sentiment in a Wartime Book for Girls," Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on World War II, Siena College, 1994.
Guest lectures: "Recent English Fiction," " The English Experience, " New York University, 1993 and 1994; "The English Novel," The Shakespeare Club, 1992; "The New York Novel," "Edith Wharton's Old New York," New York University's "Sundays in New York" series, 1995-97
Women's Studies, edited by Virginia Hlavsa, Fall 1993: "Demeter as the letter D: Naming Women in The Sound and The Fury and As I Lay Dying."
Massachusetts Review, Winter, 1985 "Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle "
The Literary Review, Autumn, 1981: “Anthony Powell's Secret Harmonies"
POETRY: "Heaven," Journal of Popular Film and Television; "Incredible Justice," "Visitation," "Lady Going Crazy," in Rolling Stone; "Primavera," Art Times; "The Typewriter," Women Poems #3 (special issue featuring Adrienne Rich and Marge Piercy) "Dinner at Eight," "The Apple Tree," New York Culture Review "Things in Dreams," International Dream Quarterly
Performances and Appearances
2023 Lecture Series on Agatha Christie, 92nd St. Y
2018 “Fragments of Possible Stories,” Ottendorfer Library, NYC
2017 #OneBookMcGhee: “ Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie"; discussion with Margaret Boe Birns
“Reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead” with Margaret Boe Birns, NYUSPS Great Lecture Series
2015 "Etgar Keret: The Seven Good Years," Brotherhood Synagogue guest lecture and discussion,
2014 EnrichMint post-performance discussion :”John Van Druten: Life and Work, ” Mint Theater New York City..
2010 Member of Panel on Tolstoy and Pedagogy, Tolstoy in the 21st Century, The New School
2007 -8 Book Club Moderator for ING Corporation Book Club,
Mount Pocono Book Club Guest Book Club Moderator
2006 "Literary Laurels,” ING Corporation Learning at Lunch Lecture
2004 "The Novel Now, "ING Corporation Learning at Lunch Lectures
1997 "The New York Novel," and "Edith Wharton's Old New York," New York University's "Sundays in New York" series
1994 "Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse, Feminism and National Sentiment in a Wartime Book for Girls," Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on World War II, Siena College, 1994.
1989 "Demeter as the Letter D," The American Names Society Conference, Baruch College,
1993 "Recent English Fiction," The English Experience, New York University,
Awards And Honors
Award for Excellence in Teaching 1985
Finalist for Distinguished University Teaching Award, The New School, 2011.