Professor Rachel Bowlby FBA

Rachel Bowlby's work is focused on two main areas: literary realism, and the history and theory of consumer culture. These interests have been linked since her first book, Just Looking (1985), on novels about department stores. Other books on consumer culture include Shopping with Freud (1993), Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping (2000), on supermarkets, and Back to the Shops: The High Street in History and the Future (2022). She has written on everyday life and its representations in Everyday Stories (2016) and on reproductive technologies and changing forms of parenthood in A Child of One's Own (2013). All her work is informed by psychoanalytic and deconstructive thinking, especially Feminist Destinations (1997) on Virginia Woolf, and Freudian Mythologies: Greek Tragedy and Modern Identities (2007). Talking Walking: Essays in Cultural Criticism (2018) and Unexpected Items (2024) are recent collections of essays. Rachel Bowlby has also translated several works of contemporary French philosophy, including two books by Jacques Derrida. She has held various visiting positions or fellowships at universities including Cornell, Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle) and Otago (New Zealand) (2006). In 2024 she was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. Her most recent book is Zola: Writing Modern Life (2025).