Dame Gillian Patricia Kempster Beer, DBE, FBA (née Thomas; born 27 January 1935) is a British literary critic and academic. She was President of Clare Hall from 1994 to 2001, and King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge from 1994 to 2002.
Dame Gillian Beer
DBE FBA
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| Personal details | |
| Born | (1935-01-27) 27 January 1935 (age 89) Surrey, England |
| 5th President of Clare Hall, Cambridge | |
| In office 1994–2001 | |
| Preceded by | Anthony Low |
| Succeeded by | Ekhard Salje |
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Born Gillian Patricia Kempster ThomasinSurrey, England,[1] Beer studied English LiteratureatSt Anne's College, Oxford.
Following teaching posts at Bedford College, London and the University of Liverpool, she was a fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, for 30 years. She was later King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge, and later president of Clare Hall, the University of Cambridge's distinctive, international postgraduate college.
She served as chair of the judges for the Booker Prize in 1997.
Her most intensive literary criticism lies in the field of Victorian studies. Darwin's Plots (1983), in particular, related the form of Victorian novels to Darwinist thinking. Its significance as a work was confirmed by the publication of a second edition by Cambridge University Press in 2000 and a third edition in 2009. She has also written important collections of essays on Virginia Woolf (The Common Ground, 1996) and on other aspects of the relations of literature, science, and other academic disciplines.[2]
She married the literary critic John Beer in September 1962;[7] they have three sons.
Name: Gillian P K Thomas; Mother's Maiden Surname: Burley; Date of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar 1935; Registration district: Surrey Mid Eastern; Inferred County: Kent; Volume Number: 2a; Page Number: 405(subscription required)
Name: Gillian P K Thomas; Spouse Surname: Beer; Date of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep 1962; Registration district: Cambridge; Inferred County: Cambridgeshire; Volume Number: 4a; Page Number: 627(subscription required)
| Awards and achievements | ||
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| Preceded by | Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 1967 and Christine Alexander |
Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | King Edward VII Professor of English Literature University of Cambridge 1994 to 2002 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of Clare Hall, Cambridge 1994-2001 |
Succeeded by |