Sheila Delany Papers

Dr. Sheila Delany is a retired professor of medieval literature. She obtained her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1967. That same year, she was hired by Queens College English Department as a professor. In November 1968, the department notified Delany of their decision not rehire her for reasons not specified. Delany notes that English Chair Daniel Donno told her she was not "charming enough" and students believe she was targeted for her leftist political views. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) took up the fight to reinstate Delany, as her cause became one of several flanks in a wave of campus unrest (students were protesting the Vietnam War, corporate and military recruiters on campus, racism, and advocating for students rights and academic freedom).

Losing the appeal, Delany used her enforced year off to put together her first book, Counter-tradition: The Literature of Dissent and Alternatives (Basic Books, 1970). She and her husband accepted tenure-track positions at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC, moving there in 1970 with their two small children, Nick and Lev. Delany became a distinguished medievalist and Chaucerian, pioneering gender studies and a Marxian approach to literature in her many articles and books. She was invited to speak at conferences and universities in North America, South Africa, Australia, Israel, England, Belgium, Poland. Since 1974, she has been closely associated with the Marxist academic journal Science and Society and has worked locally with groups focusing on Cuba, Palestinian rights, and free speech, as well as the international Spartacist tendency. She retired from Simon Fraser University in 2006 and lives in Vancouver.