Beth Blum is an assistant professor of English at Harvard University. She is finishing a book manuscript about the joint history of modern literature and self-help. Pieces pertaining to this research have appeared in Modernism/Modernity, MLQ, and Aeon Ideas, with another forthcoming in PMLA.
Beth Blum
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Writing on Public Books
Motherhood in the End Times
Having a child forces you to confront all of those abstract threats you might have previously labored to ignore: physical entropy, the planetary future, human …
The New Self-Help
Now that self-help personalities Helen Gurley Brown and Pauline Phillips, the original Dear Abby, are gone, who will the new generation of millennial readers look to for advice? Some surprising frontrunners are not therapists or professional writers, but television comediennes, such as Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, and Amy Poehler, whose autobiographies offer counsel on subjects […]
