Louise A. Poresky, Ph.D.

Louise A. Poresky is a literary scholar, professor, and author. She has taught literature and writing at colleges in the New York metropolitan area since the late 1970s and has published scholarship on both modern and medieval literature.

Her doctoral dissertation, The Elusive Self: Psyche and Spirit in Virginia Woolf’s Novels, was originally published in 1981 by the Associated University Presses. Appearing just as Woolf scholarship was building in intensity across the academic world, The Elusive Self takes all of Woolf’s novels within its compass and shows the depth of Woolf’s insights into the emotional and spiritual lives of her characters. Dr. Poresky, a founding member of the Virginia Woolf Society, has presented papers at the Virginia Woolf Annual Conference and has published in the Society’s Miscellany.

Dr. Poresky has also written articles and presented papers on other literary figures such as Chaucer, George Eliot, William Faulkner, and Dorothy Richardson. Through all of her scholarship, Dr. Poresky’s studies have focused on the human experience. Whether she talks of Dorothea Brooke’s personal and social pilgrimage in Eliot’s Middlemarch, the tragic hero qualities and Oedipal conflicts of Joe Christmas in Faulkner’s Light in August, or the eternal renewal desired by the characters in Woolf’s The Waves, Poresky delves into the characters’ struggles and triumphs and their sorrows and joys for her readers’ examination and reflection.

Besides articles of literary scholarship, Dr. Poresky has been invited to present papers at various colleges. She has appeared before the English Department and student body of King’s College in Briarcliff Manor as a guest speaker on both Woolf and Eliot, and she has participated on panels at women’s studies conferences.

Dr. Poresky’s latest work is entitled Another Way of Seeing: The Teachings of “A Course in Miracles.” In this work, Poresky explains the basic teachings of A Course in Miracles, devoting a chapter to each. First she explains the specific teaching--whether it is about the nature of relationships or how the world is perceived--through interpretation of the Course’s Text. She then presents a work of classical literature, as a psychoanalytic theoretician would present a case study, to illustrate the teaching.