Marc Shell

Marc Shell, born 1947 in Montreal, is a Canadian literary critic, currently Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of English at Harvard University.

Shell is one of the forerunners, along with Jean-Joseph Goux and others, of the literary-critical movement that has been dubbed 'New Economic Criticism.' His contributions to the study of relations between linguistic and literary economies are encompassed in several influential books, including

• The Economy of Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press 1978).
• Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era (UC Berkeley 1982).
• Art and Money (University of Chicago Press 1995).

Forthcoming works in this area include the following:

• Wampum and the Origin of American Money (University of Illinois Press, 2013).
• The Painting in the Trash Bin: Otis Kaye and the Perplexities of Art (Chicago, forthcoming).

Nationalism and kinship: Shell has also worked on issues of in a number of essays and books. Many are concerned with the European Renaissance. These include:

• The End of Kinship: "Measure for Measure," Incest, and the Ideal of Universal Siblinghood (Stanford 1988).
• Children of the Earth: Literature, Politics, and Nationhood (Oxford 1993).
• Elizabeth's Glass: With "The Glass of the Sinful Soul" (1544) by Elizabeth I and "Epistle Dedicatory" and "Conclusion" (1548) by John Bale (Nebraska 1995).

Multilingualism: Shell is co-founder of Harvard's Longfellow Institute, which is devoted to the study of non-English American literatures. Relevant books about translation, language policy, and bilingualism include:

• The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature (NYU ed. 2000).
• American Babel: Literatures of the United States from Abnaki to Zuni (Harvard ed. 2002).

Disability studies: Shell's books in disability studies include works about paralysis and stuttering.

• Polio and its Aftermath (Harvard 2005).
• Stutter (Harvard 2006).

Canada and the United States: Shell's writings about Canada and the United States include:

• French-Canadian / American Literary Relations (McGill French Canada Studies Centre 1968).
• Grand Manan: or, A Short History of North America (McGill-Queens 2015 forthcoming).

Shell has received a MacArthur Fellowship. He studied at McGill University and Trinity College, Cambridge, and earned a B.A. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from Yale University. Before going to Harvard, he taught at The State University of New York (Buffalo) and the University of Massachusetts (Amherst).

• Marc Shell