Leonard Tennenhouse | Scholars@Duke

Leonard Tennenhouse
Professor Emeritus of English

Len Tennenhouse teaches courses in British and American literature that look at earlier formulations of our most deeply held assumptions about who we are, how to live with other people, and what we pursue in the name of happiness. What changes, he asks, do these ideas of the purpose and possibilities of human existence undergo as they are rewritten under new material conditions and to different political effect over the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries? His courses in critical theory give students at all levels the tools for addressing this question in various modes of writing. His present research shows how the substantial body of fiction produced during the period following ratification of the U.S. Constitution waged a political argument that pitted direct democracy against the representative liberalism that early American writers attributed to their British counterparts.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor Emeritus of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2023

Contact Information

303 Allen Bldg, Box 90015, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90015, Durham, NC 27708-0015
l.tennenhouse@duke.edu (919) 681-2741

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of Rochester 1970
- B.A., Wayne State University 1965
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2008 - 2022
- Chair, Department of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2009 - 2015
- Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2014
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Armstrong, Nancy, and Leonard Tennenhouse. Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing (Accepted). Haney Foundation, 2017.
  - Tennenhouse, L. Violence done to women on the Renaissance stage. 2014, pp. 77–97. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9781315794389.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. Violence done to women on the Renaissance stage. 2014, pp. 77–97. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9781315794389.
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  - Tennenhouse, L., and N. Armstrong, editors. The Ideology of Conduct: (Routledge Revivals) Essays in Literature and the History of Sexuality. Routledge, 2014.
  - Tennenhouse, L., and N. Armstrong, editors. The Ideology of Conduct: (Routledge Revivals) Essays in Literature and the History of Sexuality. Routledge, 2014.
  - Tennenhouse, L. The importance of feeling English: American literature and the British diaspora, 1750-1850. 2009, pp. 1–158.
  - Tennenhouse, Leonard. The Importance of Feeling English. Princeton University Press, 2007.
  - Armstrong, Nancy, and L. Tennenhouse. The Literature of Conduct, the Conduct of Literature, and the Politics of Desire. Edited by Larry Trudeau, Gale Research, 2000.
  - Armstrong, Nancy, and L. Tennenhouse. The Imaginary Puritan: Literature, Intellectual Labor, and the Origins of Personal Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse, editors. The Ideology of Conduct: Essays on Literature and the History of Sexuality. Methuen Publishing, 1987.
  - Tennenhouse, L. Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare’s Genres. Methuen, 1986.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse, editors. The Rhetoric of Violence. Rutledge, 1985.
- Academic Articles
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “Recalling Cora: Family Resemblances in the Last of the Mohicans.” American Literary History, vol. 28, no. 2, Apr. 2016, pp. 223–45. Scopus, doi:10.1093/alh/ajw007.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “Recalling Cora: Family Resemblances in the Last of the Mohicans.” American Literary History, vol. 28, Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy F, 2016, pp. 1–23.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “Novels before Nations: How Early US Novels Imagined Community.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne De Littérature Comparée, vol. 42, no. 4, 2015, pp. 353–67. Manual, doi:10.1353/crc.2015.0036.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “Sovereignty and the Form of Formlessness.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, vol. 20, no. 2–3, 2009, pp. 148–78. Manual, doi:10.1215/10407391-2009-007.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “The Problem of Population and the Form of the American Novel.” American Literary History, vol. 20, no. 4, 2008, pp. 667–85. Manual, doi:10.1093/alh/ajn046.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “Is there an early American novel?” Novel, vol. 40, no. 1–2, Jan. 2007, pp. 5–17. Scopus, doi:10.1215/ddnov.040010005.
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  - Tennenhouse, Leonard. “Revisiting A New World of Words.” Early American Literature, vol. 42, no. 2, Project MUSE, 2007, pp. 363–68. Crossref, doi:10.1353/eal.2007.0028.
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  - “The Early American Novel.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 40, 2007.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Libertine America.” Differences, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 1–28.
  - Tennenhouse, L. Patriarchal Strategies in Shakespearean Romance. Edited by Kierman Ryan, Longman, 1999, pp. 43–60.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “The Americanization of 'Clarissa' (Samuel Richardson, influence in colonial America).” Yale Journal of Criticism, vol. 11, no. 1, 1998, pp. 177–96.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “The American Richardson.” Yale Journal of Criticism, vol. 12, 1998, pp. 177–96.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “The case of the resistant captive.” South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 95, no. 4, Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 919–46.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “American Literary History in the Age of Critical Theory and Mulitculturalism.” Modern Language Quarterly, 1995, pp. 207–20.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “Poststructuralism and the Question of History.” Narrative, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 45–58.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “A Novel Nation; or, How to Rethink Modern England as an Emergent Culture.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 3, 1993, pp. 327–44. Manual, doi:10.1215/00267929-54-3-327.
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  - Armstrong, Nancy, and L. Tennenhouse. “History, Poststructuralism, and the Question of Narrative.” Narrative, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 45–58.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “The American Origins of the English Novel.” American Literary History, vol. 4, no. 3, 1992, pp. 386–410.
  - Armstrong, Nancy, and Leonard Tennenhouse. “The American Origins of the English Novel.” American Literary History, vol. 4, no. 3, Jan. 1992, pp. 386–410. Manual, doi:10.1093/alh/4.3.386.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “The Interior Difference: A Brief Genealogy of Dreams.” Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 1990, pp. 458–78.
  - Armstrong, Nancy, and L. Tennenhouse. “The Interior Difference: A Brief Genealogy of Dreams, 1650-1717.” Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 23, 1990, pp. 458–78.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Simulating History: A Cockfight for Our Times.” Tdr: The Drama Review, vol. 34, 1990, pp. 137–55.
  - ARMSTRONG, N., and L. TENNENHOUSE. “Gender And Work Of Words + The Historical Verbal Characterization Of Labor.” Cultural Critique, no. 13, 1989, pp. 229–78. Manual, doi:10.2307/1354275.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “Gender and the Work of Words.” Cultural Critique, vol. 13, 1989, pp. 229–79.
  - Armstrong, Nancy, and L. Tennenhouse. “Gender and the Work of Words.” Cultural Critique, vol. 13, 1989, pp. 229–78.
  - TENNENHOUSE, L. “Representing Power - 'Measure For Measure' In Its Time.” Genre, vol. 15, no. 1–2, 1982, pp. 139–56.
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  - TENNENHOUSE, L. “The Comic Matrix Of Shakespeare Tragedies - Snyder,S.” Criticism a Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. 22, no. 3, 1980, pp. 273–74.
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  - TENNENHOUSE, L. “Dramatic Identities And Cultural Tradition - Studies In Shakespeare And His Contemporaries.” Criticism a Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. 21, no. 4, 1979, pp. 365–66.
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  - TENNENHOUSE, L. “Ethic of Time - Structures of Experience in Shakespeare - Sypher, W.” Criticism a Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. 19, no. 3, 1977, pp. 284–284.
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  - TENNENHOUSE, L. “'Psychological Study Of Literature Limitations, Possibilities, And Accomplishments'.” Philosophy and Literature, vol. 1, no. 2, 1977, pp. 247–48.
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  - TENNENHOUSE, L. “Great Feast Of Language In Loves Labours Lost.” Criticism a Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. 19, no. 3, 1977, pp. 284–284.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “Coriolanus: History and the Crisis of Semantic Order.” Comparative Drama, vol. 10, 1977, pp. 328–46.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Balaam and Saul and the World of II Tamburlaine.” Neuphilologische Mitteilugen, vol. 78, 1977, pp. 115–17.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Beowulf and the Sense of History.” Bucknell Review, vol. 19, 1971, pp. 137–46.
- Book Sections
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Playing and power.” Staging the Renaissance, 2017, pp. 27–39. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9780203821565.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “Family rites: City comedy and the strategies of patriarchalism.” New Historicism and Renaissance Drama, 2016, pp. 195–206. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9781315504452.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “How to Imagine Community Without Property.” De Homenagem a Maria Irene Ramalho Santos: American Literature In a Comparative Context., Impressa da Universidade de Comimbra, 2016.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Introduction by Leonard Tennenhouse.” The Asylum Or, Alonzo and Melissa, Early American Reprints, 2016, pp. 8–20.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Introduction by Leonard Tennenhouse.” The Asylum Or, Alonzo and Melissa, Early American Reprints, 2016, pp. 8–20.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “The counterfeit order of the Merchant of Venice.” The Merchant of Venice: Critical Essays, 2015, pp. 195–215. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9781315709208.
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  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “The network novel and how it unsettled domestic fiction.” A Companion to the English Novel, 2015, pp. 306–20. Scopus, doi:10.1002/9781118607251.ch20.
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  - Tennenhouse, L., and N. Armstrong. “The Network Novel and How It Unsettled the Domestic Fiction.” A Companion to the English Novel, edited by S. Arata et al., Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, pp. 306–20.
  - Armstrong, N., and L. Tennenhouse. “The literature of conduct, the conduct of literature, and the politics of desire: An introduction.” The Ideology of Conduct (Routledge Revivals): Essays in Literature and the History of Sexuality, 2014, pp. 1–24.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Playing and power.” Staging the Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, 2013, pp. 27–39. Scopus, doi:10.4324/9781315862804.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “Unsettling Novels of the Early Republic.” Oxford History of the Novel in English, edited by Gerald Kennedy and Leland Person, Oxford University Press, 2013, p. ms.pp.27-ms.pp.27.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “The Early American Novel.” The Encyclopedia of the Novel (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 263-67., edited by Peter Melville Logan et al., Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
  - Armstrong, N., and N. Tennenhouse, L. “A Mind for Passion: Locke and Hutcheson on Desire.” Politics and the Passions, 1500-1850, edited by D. Coli et al., Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 131–50.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “The Coffeehouse.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, Oxford University Press, 2006.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “A Language for a Nation: A Transatlantic Problematic.” Transatlantic Revolutions, edited by W. M. Verhoeven, Palgrave, 2002, pp. 62–84.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Carribbean Degeneracy and the Problem of Masculinity in Ormond.” Finding Colonial Americas: Essays Honoring J.A. Leo Lemay, edited by Carla Mulford and David S. Shields, University of Delaware Press, 2001, pp. 104–24.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Violence Done to Women on the Renaissance Stage.” The Violence of Representation, 1999, pp. 77–97.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Family Rites: Patriarchal Strategies in Shakespearean Romances.” Shakespeare: The Last Plays, edited by Kierman Ryan, Longman, 1997, pp. 43–90.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Twelfth Night.” Twelfth Nigh: Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by R. S. White, Macmillan, 1996, pp. 82–91.
  - TENNENHOUSE, L. The Cambridge History Of American Literature, Vol 1, 1590-1820 - Bercovitch,S, Patell,Crk. Vol. 56, 1995, pp. 207–20.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “King Lear: The Iconography of Power.” King Lear: Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by Kierman Ryan, Macmillan, 1993, pp. 60–72.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Rituals of State/Strategies of Power.” Shakespeare’s History Plays Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by Graham Holderness, Macmillan, 1993.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Power in Hamlet.” Hamlet: Contemporary Critical Essays, edited by Martin Coyle, Macmillan, 1992, pp. 160=67-160=67.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Hamlet and the Queen’s Body.” Essays on Renaissance Drama, edited by Peter Stallybrass and David Kastan, Routledge, 1991.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Arcadian Rhetoric: Sidney and the Politics of Courtship.” Sir Philip Sidney’s Achievements, edited by Michael J. B. Allen et al., AMS, 1990, pp. 201–12.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Strategies of State and Political Plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Henriad, and Henry VIII.” Political Shakespeare, edited by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, Manchester University Press and Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985, pp. 109–28.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Sir Walter Raleigh and the Literature of Clientage.” Patronage in the Renaissance, edited by Guy Fitch Little and Stephen Orgel, Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 235–58.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “The Hidden Order of the The Merchant of Venice.” Representing Shakespeare; New Psychoanalytic Essays, edited by Coppelia Kahn and Murray Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980, pp. 54–69.
- Other Articles
  - The Practice of Psychoanalytic Criticism. Wayne State University Press, 1976.
  - Gould, Philip. “America the Feminine.” Differences, vol. 11.
- Book Reviews
  - Tennenhouse, Leonard. “The Spread of Novels: Translation and Prose Fiction in the Eighteenth Century.” Novel a Forum on Fiction, vol. 45, no. 1, 2012, pp. 120–23. Manual, doi:10.1215/00295132-1541396.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “'The Nationalism of the Transnational Novel'. Review of Translation and the Spread of Novels in the Eighteenth Century by Mary Helen McMurran (Princeton UP, 2010).” Novel, 2011.
  - L. Tennenhouse, L. “Review of Room for Maneuver: Reading (the) Oppositional (in) Narrative by Ross Chambers.” Modern Fiction Studies, University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 438–41.
  - Tennehouse, L. “Review of Tragedies Of Tyrants - Political-Thought And Theater In The English by Rebecca W Bushnell.” Modern Philology: Critical and Historical Studies in Postclassical Literature, vol. 90, no. 3, University of Chicago Press, Feb. 1993, pp. 426–30. Manual, doi:10.1086/392091.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “Review of Hidden Designs: The Critical Profession And Renaissance Literature by Jonathan Crew.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 88, no. 2, Apr. 1989, pp. 228–31.
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  - Tennenhouse, L. “Review of Revolution and Rebellion: State and society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by JCD Clark.” History and Theory, vol. 27, 1988, pp. 310–21.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Review of Crime and God’s Judgement in Shakespeare by Robert Rentoul Reed, Jr.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 38, 1985, pp. 170–72.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Review of Comic Transformations in Shakespeare by Ruth Nevo.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 38, 1982, pp. 663–65.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Review of The Comic in Renaissance Comedy by David Farley-Hills.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 35, 1982, pp. 663–65.
  - Tennenhouse, L. “Review of John Webster, Citizen and Dramatist by M.C. Bradbrook.” Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, vol. 23, no. 2, 1981, pp. 181–83.
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- Scholarly Editions
  - Tennenhouse, L. The Tudor Interludes of Nice Wanton and Impatient Poverty. The Renaissance Imagination Series, Garland, 1984.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
- ENGLISH 101S: The Art of Reading 2022
- ENGLISH 337: Shakespeare After 1600 2022
- MEDREN 332: Shakespeare After 1600 2022
- THEATRST 337: Shakespeare After 1600 2022
- ENGLISH 101S: The Art of Reading 2021
- ENGLISH 235: Shakespeare 2021
- ENGLISH 336: Shakespeare through 1600 2021
- ENGLISH 390S-7: Special Topics in Language and Literature 2021
- ENGLISH 591: Special Readings - Independent Study 2021
- MEDREN 330: Shakespeare 2021
- MEDREN 331: Shakespeare through 1600 2021
- THEATRST 222: Shakespeare 2021
- THEATRST 336: Shakespeare through 1600 2021
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession
- Chair, Foerster Prize Committee for the MLA. January 16, 2014 2014
- Refereed articles for PMLA, ECF, NOVEL. 2013 2013
- Editorial Boards: ECF, Diaspora, Cultural Critique, JMEMS. 2012 2012
- Outside evaluator for tenure and promotion. January 12, 2010 2010
- Refereed articles for Cultural Critique, Novel, Eighteenth-Century Fiction. 2009 2009
- Refereed book manuscripts. 2009 2009
- Tenure review. 2009 2009
- Editor : Editorial Board. 2008 2008
- Editorial Board. Eighteenth-Century Fiction. 2008 - 2015 2008 - 2015
- Referee for NOVEL, Mosaic, and Cultural Critique. 2008 2008
- Reviewer (Journals), Manuscript Reader. 2008 2008
- Reviewer (Presses). 2008 2008
- Tenure and Promotion Reviews. 2008 2008
- Tenure and Promotion Reviews. 2008 2008
- Editorial Board. Cultural Critique. 1992 1992
- Editorial Board. Diaspora. 1988 1988
- Editorial Board. Genders. 1988 - 1992 1988 - 1992
- Editorial Board. 1976 - 1983 1976 - 1983
Service to Duke

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Other Articles

Book Reviews

Scholarly Editions

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession

Service to Duke