Speaker Topics

The Unthinkable: The Medical Suppression of Incest—Then and Now

This presentation exposes strategies employed by medical professionals to keep incest from public view and to erase incest from the historical record. The social and political consequences of the suppression are also addressed.

Why We Need to Repoliticize Incest

In this presentation, Dr Osborn examines how the medical establishment—functioning as an extended patriarchy—has depoliticized and coopted the issue of sexual violence.

Sexual Violence Against Girls and the Politics of Shame

In this talk, Dr. Osborn reveals how enduring systems of private, institutional, and political power cultivate feelings of shame and helplessness in victims, undermining collective political mobilization.

What’s in a Word? Re-Visioning the Language of Sexual Violence

Too often, we still rely on euphemisms, stereotypes that favor perpetrators and show skepticism towards victims, and , sensationalism. Dr. Osborn’s presentation highlights examples of this language and offers clear, constructive alternatives.

Invite Susan

“I attended Susan Osborn’s webinar, ‘The Unthinkable: The Medical Suppression of Incest.’ It was a historical deep dive into how incest, as an epidemic, was deliberately erased from public discourse. As I listened, I was enthralled by Susan’s storytelling and recount of history.”

—Allie

“I had the privilege of attending Susan Osborn's insightful and enlightening presentation for Incest Aware. Osborn has the ability to address an uncomfortable subject with sensitivity and sensibility, offering a clear, accessible, and eye-opening look at an issue that can no longer be ignored or shrouded in silence at the expense of women and girls. Osborn’s crucial message stays with attendees long after her presentation has ended.”

—Elizabeth

“Surviving the Wreck is a chilling novel about the silences in ‘normal’ families, the pain behind those silences, and the need to turn silence into speech.”

—Alicia Ostriker, former New York State Poet Laureate

“Well-moderated [and] dangerously intellectual…a tour de force.”

—Ian d’ Alton, The Irish Review

“Splendid…osborn…advance[s] a series of sophisticated claims about mimesis…an impressive contribution.”

—Matthew Brown, Irish Studies Review

“…quite simply, a work of genius. Never before have the intricacies of family bonds been so honestly and so compellingly rendered.”

—Louise De Salvo, author of Vertigo and Conceived with Malice

“This masterfully executed novel. . . . deals with the harrowing consequences of growing up in a family where everyone turns to the wrong person for affection . . . very engaging; highly recommended.”

—Library Journal

Selected Lectures, Presentations, & Workshops

Contemporary American Fiction: Styles of Engagement, in conjunction with a reading of Surviving the Wreck

Universität Basel, sponsored by The British Society for Literature and Science

Because Bowen’s prose style disrupts our conventional reading expectations, I used this presentation to explore the imaginative and social value of these disruptions. After, I read a few passages from my novel about incest, Surviving the Wreck.

A Problem and a Wonder: Developing Students’ Metacognitive Abilities in the Creative Writing Classroom

Northeast Modern Language Association

Young writers are often told to revise, but they are not taught how to re-vision, or re-see their writing in order to effect improvement. In this presentation, I outlined strategies that help students learn how to revise their thinking and writing.

‘This Pointless Verbal Excess:’ A Reconsideration of Bowen’s Stylistic Tics, ‘A Mixture of Showing off and Suspicion, Nearly as Bad as Sex’: Reading Elizabeth Bowen

Symposium, University of Sussex

In this presentation, I once again tackled Bowen’s prose and the gendered criticism that was often deployed to deride and shame her as a “deviant” and “excessive” (i.e., “neurotic”) female writer.

“Elizabeth Bowen Imagining Ireland,” in conjunction with a reading of “Lie About”

Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture

For this conference, I was asked to read some of my fiction and present an aspect of my Bowen scholarship. “Lie About” reflects the social injustices I witnessed every day when I lived in a very affluent Ivy League town. In “Elizabeth Bowen Imagining Ireland,” I spoke about the wonderful and challenging ways Bowen imagined her homeland in her prose fiction.

Excerpts from My Mother’s Shoes

Rutgers University Reading Series

Elizabeth Bowen’s Ireland

Invited lecture, Trevor/Bowen Literary Summer School, Mitchelstown, Ireland

Although married, Bowen lived most of her married life away from her husband. In this lecture, I explored the relationship between her independent life and the tangled history of Ireland.

Bowen conference, Mitchelstown Ireland