American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
The James Russell Wiggins Lecture in the History of the Book in American Culture features an expert on book history. The lecture was endowed to honor James Russell Wiggins (1903-2000), who served as AAS president (1970-1977), an editor of the Washington Post (1947-1968), United States ambassador to the United Nations (1968-69), and editor of the Ellsworth (Maine) American (1969-2000).
Christopher Looby is professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. His teaching and research focus on connections between literary texts and historical circumstances, relations between the material form of print publication and the effects of reading, and dynamic exchanges between bodies and pleasures across the longue durée of the history of sexuality. Looby is the general editor, as well as the editor, of several volumes in the Q19: The Queer American Nineteenth Century series, the most recent of which is an edition of the writings of Margaret J. M. Sweat, including her novel Ethel’s Love-Life (1859). From 2010-2012 he served as the first President of C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. He was elected to AAS membership in October 2007.