Dr. Ruth Panofsky

Biography:

Ruth Panofsky is Professor of English and a member of the Yeates School of Graduate Studies, contributing to the MA in Literatures of Modernity, the MA in Immigration and Settlement Studies, and the interdisciplinary joint graduate program in Communication and Culture. Dr. Panofsky is a leading, authoritative scholar of the history of publishing and authorship in Canada and Canadian Jewish literature. She is the chief specialist on the Macmillan Company of Canada and novelist Adele Wiseman. Panofsky’s pioneering studies of Canadian women and Jewish writers have advanced new research fields, and her impeccable textual scholarship has made the work of novelists and poets available to a wide audience in print and digital editions.

Dr. Panofsky’s research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the Bibliographical Society of Canada. She received the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award in 2017 and the Sarwan Sahota Distinguished Scholar Award for outstanding contribution to knowledge or artistic creativity in 2016. Dr. Panofsky is also a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Dr. Panofsky has been a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Visiting Affiliate Scholar of Jewish Studies at Florida Atlantic University; Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany; and Visiting Scholar at Massey College. She is Advisory Editor to Book History, serves on the Advisory Board of Authorship, and is editor of Parchment: Contemporary Canadian Jewish Writing.

Dr. Panofsky is also an award-winning poet. She received a Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award for Radiant Shards: Hoda’s North End Poems (2020) and the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Laike and Nahum: A Poem in Two Voices (2007). Visit her website at ruthpanofsky.com (external link) .

Scholarly Books:

2020 Editor. The New Spice Box: Contemporary Jewish Writing. Toronto: New Jewish Press.

2019 Toronto Trailblazers: Women in Canadian Publishing. Studies in Book and Print Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

2017 Editor. The New Spice Box: Canadian Jewish Writing. Toronto: New Jewish Press. 

2015 Co-editor (with Kathleen Kellett). Cultural Mapping and the Digital Sphere: Place and Space. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.

2014 Editor. The Collected Poems of Miriam Waddington: A Critical Edition. Canadian Literature Collection. 2 vols. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. With digital database @ CLC Online.

2012 The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada: Making Books and Mapping Culture. Studies in Book and Print Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 

2008 At Odds in the World: Essays on Jewish Canadian Women Writers. Toronto: Inanna Publications.

2006 The Force of Vocation: The Literary Career of Adele Wiseman. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

2001 Editor. Adele Wiseman: Essays on Her Works. Writers Series 7. Toronto: Guernica Editions.

1997 Co-editor (with John Lennox). Selected Letters of Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

1992 Adele Wiseman: An Annotated Bibliography. Toronto: ECW Press.

Poetry Books:

2020 Radiant Shards: Hoda’s North End Poems. Toronto: Inanna Publications.

2007 Laike and Nahum: A Poem in Two Voices. Toronto: Inanna Publications.

2001 Lifeline. Essential Poets Series 107. Toronto: Guernica Editions.