ENGLISH EMERITUS FACULTY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
J.J. Wilson
1936: Born in Virginia, Janice Luebbermann
1939: Taught to read by her maternal grandmother, Lyllian Hancock Reed
1950s:
Attends Stanford University, earns B.A. in Political Science, with honors.
Year in France at University of Grenoble.
Employed as secretary, National Gallery of Art.
1959:
Marries Philip Wilson and moves to San Francisco and Berkeley.
Works as a secretary for Bank of America.
Takes classes at San Francisco State. On the advice of the late Professor Foff, first reads the novels of Virginia Woolf. Finds that her books are all out of print, locates a few novels in used bookstores.
1961- 64:
Returns to graduate school at U.C. Berkeley in French, but has "trop
d'idees and not enough French. " Moves to Comparative Literature
and completes master's thesis on Woolf.
Becomes the first women to complete the Comparative Literature Ph.D. exams at U.C. Berkeley.
Actively involved in Zen Center through Philip Wilson.
Free Speech Movement begins in Berkeley.
1964- 67:
Teaches at Smith College.
Works on civil rights issues and against the Vietnam War.
1965: Goes to Japan to study on a summer Rockefeller grant.
1968: Begins teaching part-time at U.C. Berkeley and Sonoma State University, while completing her Ph.D. dissertation on Woolf. Writes only five pages describing Woolf's feminism.
1969: Begins teaching full-time at Sonoma State University.
1970:
With other academics devoted to Woolf's writings, starts The Virginia
Woolf Miscellany, a newsletter mailed out by volunteers from SSU to more
than 2500 people in 37 countries. This community grows into the Virginia
Woolf society, which holds yearly conferences and offers lectures on Woolf's
writings.
Begins collecting hard-to-find materials on women authors.
With the help of other SSU faculty, begins leading a women's reading group in San Francisco called "The Parachutists." These generous readers help fund many women's projects, and later, The Sitting Room.
1971:
Goes to the groundbreaking Modern Language Association session on women's
writing, featuring Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde and Tillie Olsen.
Joins group of SSU students reading women's literature.
As coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, teaches the first courses that will later coalesce into the Women's Studies Program at SSU.
With a collective of students, faculty and staff, offers "Pandora's Box," a lecture series on women.
Teaches Women and Literature as a summer course. Karen Petersen is one of her students, which starts their long friendship and collaboration.
Karen begins collecting the work of women artists and J.J. horns in.
Organizes the first women's poetry readings at SSU with Jo Miles, Susan and Joanna Griffin and Jeanie Stearns.
Leads a book group on women writers for SSU faculty wives.
1972: Offers the introductory course, "Changing Women," a lecture series on women's issues with Karen Petersen. The speakers include Margo St. James, founder of the prostitutes' union, and other controversial figures.
Offers a course on Women and Literature.
1973: Publishes an account of a women's biography class with some students, calls "Through the Looking Glass - Finally!!!"
1974: J.J. and Karen receive an award from Mademoiselle magazine for their work on women artists. Throughout the 70's, Karen and J.J. offer slide shows/ lectures on women artists all over the U.S., and in Canada, England and Yugoslavia. They do more research in each place they travel.
1974: They receive a grant from the Point Foundation (the folks who publish The Whole Earth Catalog) to enable them to show slides to rural women, etc.
1975: Teaches a course in Androgyny and Literature with poet Joanna Griffin and playwright and poet Ntozake Shange.
1976: Karen and J.J.'s book Women Artists: Recognition and Reappraisal, is published by Harper & Row, with accompanying slide sets for teachers. Cited as one of the first books on women artists, it sells more than 36,000 copies. Published in England by The Women's Press.
1978: SSU Women's Studies Program is made official.
1979: J.J. named Outstanding Professor of the Year at SSU.
1981: From the profits of the sales of women artists slide sets, J.J., Karen, Cheryl Maynard, Zofia Burr, Susan Miller, Marylou Haddit, Susan Forrest and others rent space for a library of books by, about and of interest to women. The Sitting Room: A Common Women's Library and Reading Room is born.
1984: J.J. receives the Alice Paul Award from the Sonoma County Chapter of the National Organization for Women.
Dictionary of Literary Biography includes J.J.'s entry on Virginia Woolf.
1985: Has a masectomy.
1986: Receives the Florence Howe Award from the Santa Rosa Junior College.
Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women recognizes J.J. as on of its Women's History Week honorees.
1989: Brings Australian feminist theorist Dale Spender to SSU.
Teaches course on The Literature of War, with emphasis on women's experience.
1993: The Women Writers Archive, collected by J.J. since the 1970's, fills four tall filing cabinets when transferred to Special Collections in the Ruben Salazar Library at SSU. The Women Artists Archive is already housed there. By the 1997, with more than 7,000 slides, it is the worlds' largest collection of images of art by women.
Receives Outstanding Women Award by the Soroptimists.
1994: For Southern Writers, a class in fine truthtelling, J.J. brings Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina, Melba Beals, Dori Sanders, and many others to SSU.
1996: Published a short memoir in Cartwheels on the Faultline, a collection of writing by Sonoma County women, including Karen Petersen, Robin Beeman, Barbara Baer and Elizabeth Herron.
Publication of three short essays for reference work, Feminist Writers (St. James Press), on the San Francisco playwright and novelist Dorothy Bryant, Native American poet Awiakta and Ntozake Shange.
Teaches the Utopias by Women, which creates a collectively written bibliography, Toasted Ice.
1997: Helps organize a day celebrating the plays of Dorothy Bryant at
SSU.
The Sitting Room has its 16th birthday and continues its tradition of
literary events and free library access.
J.J. receives the "Fine and Long Tradition" Award from the National Women's History Project.