‘Enchanted Wood’ Shortlisted for Modernist Studies Association Book Prize

Kristin Bluemel, Ph.D., associate dean of the McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences, professor of English, and Wayne D. McMurray Endowed Chair in the Humanities, earned a place on the Modernist Studies Association (MSA) Book Prize shortlist for "Enchanted Wood: Engraving a Place for Women Artists in Rural Britain" (University of Minnesota Press, 2025).

The award goes to the best monograph published in the previous year by an established modernist scholar. A panel of judges determines the book that made the most significant contribution to modernist studies.

"Enchanted Wood" tells the overlooked story of four women wood engravers who helped reshape the visual and literary landscape of modern Britain. These craftswomen flourished during Depression-era British publishing, where they illustrated children's and adult's books by reworking Thomas Bewick's eighteenth-century naturalist print traditions for modern reflections on gender, marriage, and motherhood.

Bluemel joins four scholars from internationally renowned research universities whose books were also shortlisted for the MSA Book Prize.

Bluemel recently lectured on her research at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle, England. Her work was also highlighted in "The Art of the Everyday," which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2025 edition of Monmouth Magazine.