Barbara Hochman writes on American fiction and the history of reading, with an emphasis on race, genre, children, and libraries. Her books include Getting at the Author: Reimagining Books and Reading in the Age of American Realism (2001) and Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Reading Revolution: Race, Literacy, Childhood, and Fiction 1852-1911 (2011), recipient of the DeLong Book History prize for that year. Her article “Making Americans in the New York Public Library: Fantasy and Realities” appeared in American Literature in March 2025. Her most recent publication “Nella Larsen’s Paperwork: Reading to Black Children in the Harlem Branch Library” appeared in African American Review (vol 58.2-3).
From introductory courses through graduate seminars Barbara Hochman’s teaching reflects her belief that interpretation is informed by a reader’s personal history and cultural positioning. In both BA and advanced courses (e.g. “Books for Nineteenth-century American Children,” “Legal Aliens: Immigrants in Early Twentieth Century American Fiction,” “Fictions of the Self”) she has addressed changes in widely shared perspectives on the meaning of individual texts over time. Pinpointing such changes through close reading and class discussion her courses examine shifting assumptions about gender, race, ethnicity, the nation, literary value, and language itself.
