Hilary Scharper (born 1961) is a Canadian novelist and professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Toronto. Scharper's fiction, teaching and research focus on cultural approaches to nature. She writes historical fiction, multi-species fiction, and, self-coined, "ecoGothic" fiction.
Biography Born in 1961, Scharper grew up in Toronto, Ontario. She attended Yale, where she received her PhD in Anthropology in 1992.
Writing __NOTOC__
Scharper's first novel, Perdita (2013) is a gothic novel with strong nature themes. She has characterized her writing as "ecoGothic," a newly minted subgenre that represents a more ecologically aware gothic.EcoGothic. Ed. William Hughes and Andrew Smith. International Gothic Series, University of Manchester Press, 2013. . Scharper has stated: "I do not treat nature as merely a backdrop or setting, but rather as an active and indeed central player in the narrative." Jennifer Dawson credits Scharper with originating the term "ecoGothic".Quoted in Susan J. Tyburski, "Seduced by the Wild: Audrey Schulman's EcoGothic Romance", in: Gothic Transgressions: Extension and Commercialization of a Cultural Mode. Ed. Ellen Redling and Christian Schneider. Zurich: LIT, 2015. . p. 133. Dawson credits Scharper with originating the "ecoGothic". Critic Robert Douglas has suggested that Scharper's fiction draws upon literary classics such as Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, noting that all these novels feature landscapes that are "desolate," "powerful" and "cruel."Bob Douglas, "The Eco-Gothic: Hilary Scharper's Perdita", Critics at Large, February 19, 2014.
Scharper's book of short stories, Dream Dresses (2009), draws upon her experience as an ethnographer and explores women's experiences of dressing over the life cycle. Hollins Critic writes that Scharper "brings to her fiction writing a trained anthropological eye." The Toronto Star wrote that her writing in Dream Dresses was "reminiscent of Thomas Carlyle."
Selected works Fiction Dream Dresses: Stories (2009) Perdita (2013) ,
References
External links Hilary Scharper Hilary Scharper University of Toronto