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WORK TITLE: After Emily
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.juliedobrow.com/
CITY: Medford
STATE: MA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
https://ase.tufts.edu/epcshd/people/dobrow.htm afteremilythebook@gmail.com; lives outside of Boston, MA.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in New York, NY; children: four.
EDUCATION:Smith College, A.B., 1981; University of Pennsylvania, M.A., 1984, Ph.D., 1987.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Academic. Boston University, Boston, MA, assistant professor, 1986-93, College of Communication Graduate Programs director, 1988-93, Mass Communication/Public Relations Department assistant chair, 1988-91, 1992-93; Tufts University, Medford, MA, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development senior lecturer, 1995–, Communications & Media Studies Program director, 1999-2015, Media & Public Service Program director, 2006-10, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies director, 2014–, Film & Media Studies Program codirector, 2015–, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life senior fellow, 2016–, Department of Public Health & Community Medicine lecturer.
WRITINGS
Contributor of chapters to academic books; author of a blog for Huffington Post, 2013–; contributor to Boston Globe Magazine, Tufts Magazine, Journal of the Thoreau Society, and the Huffington Post.
SIDELIGHTS
Julie Dobrow is an American academic. Born in New York City, she studied anthropology, sociology, and women’s history at Smith College before completing a Ph.D. on the sociological implications of technology in mass communication from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Dobrow taught in the College of Communication at Boston University before moving to Tufts University, where she became the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies director. She also serves as senior lecturer at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, codirector of the Film & Media Studies Program, and senior fellow with the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Her academic research interests include content and effects of media on children; how children make sense of these images in the world of animated programming; the intersection of history and communication studies; and gender and ethnicity in media more generally. She blogs at Huffington Post on children and media issues. She has also contributed chapters to several academic books.
Dobrow published After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet in 2018. The double biography covers the lives of the mother-daughter pair of Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham, who served as editors and early promoters for the work of Emily Dickinson. Dobrow talks at length about how family troubles often stalled the progress on Dickinson’s books. Mabel, who was also an author, was a lover of Dickinson’s brother, Austin. This, reportedly, created great chaos in the family, as both Austin’s wife, Sue, and his and Emily’s sister, Lavinia, were frequently at odds with Mabel over her long-term affair with him. As Mabel aged, she started to encourage Millicent to pick up on Dickinson’s unedited poetry. Dobrow also explains the difficulties in editing Dickinson’s works and also getting them published and publicized.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly observed that “Dobrow’s narrative gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of two tireless advocates for Dickinson’s work.” The Publishers Weekly contributor found it to be “impeccably researched.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that “all entries in the voluminous literature on Dickinson are controversial…. One hopes the controversy will simply bring increased attention to Dobrow’s fresh, remarkable account.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2018, review of After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet.
Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2018, review of After Emily, p. 82.
ONLINE
Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (October 12, 2018), author profile.
Julie Dobrow website, http://www.juliedobrow.com (October 12, 2018).
Tufts University, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development website, https://ase.tufts.edu/epcshd/ (October 12, 2018), author profile.
World Economic Forum website, https://www.weforum.org/ (October 12, 2018), author profile.
People often ask me how I got interested in writing AFTER EMILY. After all, my training was mostly in media studies and I mostly teach courses about media effects. The answer to the question actually goes back many years.
When I was in college, I frequently walked by the two Dickinson family homes in Amherst, Massachusetts, and wondered about the lives of those who'd lived there. I've always been an avid biography reader, and it was in reading biographies about Emily Dickinson that I first encountered Mabel Loomis Todd. I was intrigued by Mabel: she was a fascinating woman who just didn't seem to fit easily into the 19th century world she occupied.
Then I learned that she had an equally remarkable and multi-faceted daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, about whom very little was known. No one had written a full-length biography of either woman. And it turned out there was an enormous archive of their papers - neither woman ever threw out a single scrap of paper in her life - that could be used to start figuring out their chronologies, delving into their accomplishments, and telling their stories. Because both of them were also devoted diarists (Mabel kept both a daily diary and a journal for 66 years, Millicent kept both for close to 80), I had the unique opportunity to learn not only about what they did in their lives, but also what they thought and felt about them.
In fact, many aspects of my experience aided me in writing their intertwined narratives. My undergraduate training in anthropology and sociology and my professional experiences as a freelance journalist helped me to know how to ask good questions and how to tell a good story. The fact that my own professional life has been so interdisciplinary (I've taught courses in departments ranging from communications to environmental studies to child development) enabled me to understand different aspects of Mabel and Millicent's lives. My interdisciplinary focus also liberated me from trying to envision my work through only one lens. This approach has been really helpful, especially when telling the stories of two women who pushed up against the edges of their times in so many different and varied ways.
***
Julie Dobrow is a professor with appointments in the department of Child Study and Human Development and the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University and serves as director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine and the Huffington Post, among other publications. She lives outside of Boston
WEDDINGS: VOWS; Julie Dobrow and Jason Rossi
By LOIS SMITH BRADY
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FOR as long as Julie Dobrow can remember, she has known exactly what kind of man she wanted to marry.
''I've always been attracted to half-Italian, half-Jewish men,'' she said. ''They're tall, dark and handsome, and they love their families, and they love to eat.''
Ms. Dobrow, 26, an actress and a graduate student in theater management at Columbia University, started searching for a husband when she was about 5, her relatives recalled -- around the time she began trying on wedding dresses and veils.
By late 1996, she was living in East Haddam, Conn., and appearing in the musical ''Annie'' at the Goodspeed Opera House. She had insomnia and no love life at all. So, one night she turned on her computer and found her way to America Online's personal ads for Jewish singles. ''It was 3 A.M., and I couldn't sleep, and I was lonely in rural Connecticut,'' she said.
One ad instantly caught her eye. It began, ''Tall, dark and handsome Italian-Jewish boy 4U2NJOY.'' She immediately sent him a message. The ad was placed by Jason Rossi, who lived alone in an apartment in Montclair, N.J. He had recently moved from his hometown of Palo Alto, Calif., to take a job managing the editing and proofreading at Transperfect Translations in New York. He worked long hours and never had time to meet people, except on line.
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''I got up at 6, caught a bus to Manhattan, worked until 10 or 11 at night, got home at midnight, got on the computer to see who was on line,'' said Mr. Rossi, 31. ''AOL was my lifeline to the world outside work.''
The two became late-night E-mail correspondents. They wrote about food, bicycling (his hobby), literature and the life of a working actress. Ms. Dobrow's mother, Diane Dobrow, remembered that very early on, her daughter called and said, ''Mom, how do you think the name Julie Rossi would sound?''
By February 1997, Ms. Dobrow had moved back to Manhattan and exchanged photographs with Mr. Rossi. When he received her envelope in the mail, he stared at it for a long time before opening it. ''I'm a big fan of delayed gratification,'' he said.
Ms. Dobrow did the opposite. ''I tore his envelope open, and I was blown away by his looks,'' she said.
A few days later, she called and invited him to a Knicks game. He remembered thinking, ''You're not only beautiful, but you like basketball, too?''
They met before the game at Seventh Avenue and 34th Street. As Ms. Dobrow approached the busy corner, she remembered, she saw him leaning against a storefront and knew she would marry him one day. He recalled seeing her in the crowd and thinking the same thing.
On Jan. 2, they were married in the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. Among the guests were the bride's grandmothers, Eleanor Stein and Eleanor Dobrow -- in the family they are known respectively as Grandma Hearts (her late husband was a cardiologist) and Grandma Teeth (hers was a dentist).
Both said they were horrified to learn that Ms. Dobrow met Mr. Rossi on the Internet, which they envision as a haven for ax murderers. ''I'm going to leave this world without knowing a thing about the computer,'' Grandma Hearts said. ''I'm 85, and an old dog can't learn new tricks.''
The bride's mother also said she was worried at first. But she grew to like Mr. Rossi, especially after he accompanied her daughter on a trip to Tuscany with 21 friends, mostly actors. There, he agreed to wear orange tights and play Puck in an informal production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream.''
''Julie is ebullient,'' Mrs. Dobrow said. ''She sparkles. Jay, on the other hand, has this gentleness and sweetness. He is what every mother wants for her daughter -- someone who is grounded, who is real, who is trustworthy and yet can go off to Tuscany and play a fairy in 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' ''
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Julie Dobrow
Senior lecturer, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University
In addition to my appointment in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, I serve as Director of Tufts Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and a Senior Fellow in Civic Media at the Tisch College of Civic Life. My interdisciplinary training (anthropology, sociology, women's history as an undergraduate) and media studies (as a graduate student) positioned me for equally interdisciplinary research. A lot of what I do is focused around examining race, ethnicity and gender in children's media and the effects of these images. But I also do a lot focused around historical issues – mostly the fascinating lives of some 19th-century women.
Julie Dobrow is a professor with appointments in the department of Child Study and Human Development and the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University and serves as director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine and the Huffington Post, among other publications. She lives outside of Boston.
Julie Dobrow
Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Tufts University; Senior Fellow, Media & Civic Engagement, Tisch College of Civic Life
Dr. Julie Dobrow, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, a Senior Lecturer in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University, a Senior Fellow at the Tisch College of Civic Life and has a faculty appointment in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts Medical School. She teaches classes on children and media issues and does research on portrayals of race, gender, ethnicity and age in children's media. A frequent speaker on media literacy to parent and educational groups, Dobrow is also the mother of four children.
Faculty
Contact Info:
Tufts University
Eliot-Pearson Department
of Child Study and
Human Development
105 College Avenue
Medford, MA 02155
Office: 617-627-4744
Email
Julie Dobrow
Senior Lecturer
Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
Lecturer, Department of Public Health & Community Medicine, Tufts School of Medicine
Education
Ph.D., Media Studies, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1987
MA, Media Studies, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1984
AB, Anthropology and Sociology, Smith College, 1981
Expertise
Children and media, ethnicity/gender and media, adolescents and media use
Research
I am currently working on a three tiered interdisciplinary research project along with Chip Gidney at Eliot-Pearson and Jennifer Burton in Drama and Dance. We are updating prior work we've done that investigates images of race, ethnicity and gender in children's animated programming using both content and sociolinguistic analysis. The second part of this research will be an exploration of these issues through intensive interviews with vocal casting directors and actors, and the third part will be empirical research into how children make sense of gender, race and ethnicity in the animated programs they see.
My applied work includes doing many media literacy workshops for parents and for children in a variety of settings. I also write a blog for The Huffington Post on children and media issues.
My other research is historical in nature. I'm currently writing a mother/daughter biography of two fascinating 19th century women.
Publications
Dobrow, J. (2013 - ongoing). Blogger for Huffington Post, Screen Sense.
Dobrow, J. (Winter, 2013). "Amour in Amherst: A Scholar Shares in the Pain of Bygone Lovers." Tufts Magazine.
Dobrow, J. (Winter/Spring2012). "Saving the Land: Thoreau's Environmental Ethic and its Influence on Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham." Journal of the Thoreau Society (277).
Boyd, M. and Dobrow, J. (2012). "Media Literacy, Civic Engagement and Positive Youth Development: How News Media Use Can Promote Knowledge and Predict Activity." Chapter in Positive Youth Development: Research and Applications for Promoting Thriving in Adolescence, a thematic issue of Advances in Child Development and Behavior.
Dobrow, J. (2003). "Electronic Media in Young Children's Lives." In Proactive Parenting: Guiding your Child from Two to Six. New York: Beakley Books.
Julie Dobrow
Tisch College Senior Fellow for Media and Civic Engagement
617.627.4744
julie.dobrow@tufts.edu
Eliot-Pearson Child Development Center, Room 159
105 College Avenue, Medford, MA
Biography:
Julie Dobrow has an A.B. from Smith College in Anthropology and Sociology, and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in media studies from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Much of her research centers on the content and effects of media on children; on issues of gender and ethnicity in media; and on how children make sense of these images in the world of animated programming. Dobrow’s other main research interest is in the intersection of history and communication studies.
Her book, Outside Emily's Door: Mabel Loomis Todd, Millicent Todd Bingham and the Making of America's Greatest Poet, will be published by WW Norton and Company in 2016. Dobrow has worked professionally as a journalist and runs workshops on media literacy training for parents, teachers, and students. She writes a blog on children and media issues for the Huffington Post, in addition to freelance pieces for the Boston Globe Magazine and other publications.
Education:
Ph.D., Media Studies, Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania
M.A., Media Studies, Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania
A.B. (magna cum laude), Anthropology and Sociology, Smith College
Professional Experience:
1995-present
Tufts University
Senior Fellow, Joanthan M. Tisch College of Civic Life (2016-present)
Co-Director, Film & Media Studies Program (2015-present)
Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (2014-present)
Senior Lecturer, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development (1995-present)
Director, Communications & Media Studies Program (1999-2015)
Director, Media & Public Service Program, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service (2006-2010)
1986-1993
Boston University
Director of Graduate Programs, College of Communication (1988-1993)
Assistant Chair, Mass Communication/Public Relations Department, College of Communication (1988-91, 1992-93)
Assistant Professor, College of Communication, (1986-1993)
Selected Professional Activities:
2016-present: WGBH, First 8 Labs
2011-present: WGBH, “Arthur”
2007: New England News Forum
2006-present: Children’s TV Project
2005-present: WGBH/Tufts partnership
Curriculum Vitae:
Julie Dobrow CV.pdf
Teaching/Courses Taught:
Media and Environment: Creating Change
Environment, Communication & Cultures
Gender, Race and Media
Heroes and Villains in Mass Media
Creating Children’s Media
Children and Mass Media
Media Literacy and Social Change
Julie Dobrow is Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Tufts University in Medford, MA. She holds faculty appointments in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and the Film and Media Studies Program in Tufts’ School of Arts and Sciences, as well as the Department of Public Health & Community Medicine at the Tufts Medical School. She is also a Senior Fellow in media and civic engagement at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts.
She previously taught at Boston University in the College of Communication.
Dobrow was born in New York City and raised on Long Island. Her professional training began at Smith College, where she studied anthropology, sociology, and women’s history. She received her MA and Ph.D. from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on the sociological implications of technology in mass communication. Work from her Ph.D. dissertation was published as a book, Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990).
Some of her research today focuses on the content and effects of media on children, a well as on issues of gender and ethnicity in media and how children make sense of these images in the world of animated programming. She is a co-founder of the Tufts Children’s Television Project (CTV) https://sites.tufts.edu/ctvresearch/ She was a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and other publications on topics related to children and media.
At Tufts, Dobrow has served as a faculty advisor for hundreds of theses and projects, and has organized major events including the annual Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism and the Eliot-Pearson Awards for Excellence in Children’s Media, which have brought to campus journalists including Ted Koppel, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Anderson Cooper, Christiane Amanpour and Katy Tur, and leaders in children’s entertainment such as the creators and researchers behind Sesame Street and LeVar Burton (video links available here.)
The mother of four children, she was repeatedly elected to the School Committee in her town (and also served as its chair), served several years on that town’s Conservation Commission, served as chair of her community’s Cultural Council and is now on the town Personnel Board. Dobrow is also a board member of the Boston Authors Club – an organization that Mabel Loomis Todd helped to found.
After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America's Greatest Poet
Publishers Weekly. 265.22 (May 28, 2018): p82.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America's Greatest Poet
Julie Dobrow. Norton, $27.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-393-24926-2
Tufts University professor Dobrow chronicles the lives of two of Emily Dickinson's earliest champions and editors, the mother-daughter team of Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham, shining a light on how they shaped "the contours of [Dickinson's] poetry as we know it today." Mabel, an author, was also the longtime lover of Dickinson's brother, Austin, bringing her into conflict with Austin's wife, Sue, and Emily's sister, Lavinia. These feuds frequently stalled publication of Dickinson's work and, as Mabel neared the end of her life, she implored Millicent to continue working on the poet's as-yet unpublished output. Dobrow authoritatively traces the tortuous editorial and publication process that first brought Dickinson's work to public attention, and sensitively explores her subjects' interior lives, showing how Mabel suffered from being, the other woman in Austin's life and how Millicent struggled growing up in her charismatic ' mother's shadow. Quotes from Mabel's diary demonstrate her intuitive understanding of Dickinson's greatness, such as when she declared that the poems "seemed to open the door into a wider universe." Impeccably researched using more than 700 boxes of the Todds' personal documents, Dobrow's narrative gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of two tireless advocates for Dickinson's work, demonstrating how poet and editors alike were "all women pushing up against the boundaries of their times." (Nov.)
Caption: Mabel Loomis Todd(l.) and her daughter, Millkent Todd Bingham, played a pivotal role in the publication of Emily Dickinson's poetry, as recounted in Julia Dobrow's After Emily (reviewed on this page).
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America's Greatest Poet." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 82. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638830/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2efce962. Accessed 17 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638830
Dobrow, Julie: AFTER EMILY
Kirkus Reviews. (July 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Dobrow, Julie AFTER EMILY Norton (Adult Nonfiction) $27.95 10, 30 ISBN: 978-0-393-24926-2
An elegant recovery of the two women without whom "Because I could not stop for Death" likely wouldn't be required reading for American high school students.
During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) didn't publish much, but after she died, her brother's mistress took up the cause of Dickinson's verse. Mabel Loomis Todd is one of the stock characters of the Dickinson story. Dobrow (Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies/Tufts Univ.) spent years in the massive Todd archives--Yale's Sterling Library holds more than 700 boxes of diaries, journals, and notes about psychiatric sessions--in order to recount, with sympathy and nuance, Todd's near-obsession with editing Dickinson, securing a publisher, and publicizing the poet on the lecture circuit. While telling Todd's story, the author sensitively explores the (much-criticized) editorial choices Todd made and the question of who was responsible for the "legend" of Emily-the-recluse-in-white. Less well known than Todd is her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, who completes Dobrow's twinned biography. Bingham grew up immersed in her mother's obsession with Dickinson: "Initiation into the vagaries of Emily's handwriting is one of the earliest rites I can recall," she once said. As an adult, she took over the work, publishing yet-unseen poems and letters and delving into arguments about copyright and archive battles. (Dobrow manages to make wrangling between university libraries fascinating.) The author reduces neither woman to her devotion to Dickinson. She attends to their professional accomplishments, world travels, marriages, and passion for conservation. The book, then, is about the Belle of Amherst, but it is also about being a working woman, a mother, and a daughter.
All entries in the voluminous literature on Dickinson are controversial--some will bristle at such a positive depiction of Todd or suggest that some of Dickinson's relatives deserve more charity or credit. One hopes the controversy will simply bring increased attention to Dobrow's fresh, remarkable account.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Dobrow, Julie: AFTER EMILY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A546323107/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e7928f34. Accessed 17 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A546323107