Hildegard Hoeller is interested in American fiction and culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, with emphasis on exploring texts by women and African-American writers. She particularly examies the role economics (from historical economic events and texts to gift theory to economic tropes) play in American novels. She also has a strong interest in a variety of literary traditions: sentimental writing, realism, naturalism, modernism, the Harlem Renaissance.

Selected Publications:

• Edith Wharton’s Dialogue with Realism and Sentimental Fiction. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.

• Norton Critical Edition of Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.

• “A Quilt for Life: Lydia Maria Child’s The American Frugal Housewife.” American Transcendental Quarterly 13.2 (June 1999), 89-104.

•  “Race, Plagiarism, and Modernism: The Case of Nella Larsen’s ‘Sanctuary’.” African-American Review. 40.3 (Fall 2006), 421-438.

• “Racial Currency: Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘The Gilded Six-Bits’ and the Gold Standard Debate,” American Literature. 77.4 (December 2005), 761-785.