Margaret Anne Doody (born September 21, 1939) is a Canadian author of historical detective fiction and feminist literary critic. She is professor of literature at the University of Notre Dame, helped found the PhD in Literature Program at Notre Dame,^[1] and served as its director from 2001 to 2007.

Academic career

Doody completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford in 1968. She then taught at the University of Wales from 1969 to 1976, after which she taught at Princeton University.

According to the New York Times, Doody, along with Valerie Smith, Emory Elliott, and Sandra Gilbert, resigned from Princeton in 1989.^[2] The reports suggest that the four were unhappy with the leniency shown to Thomas McFarland after he was accused of sexual misconduct. McFarland was initially put on a one-year suspension, but eventually took early retirement after these resignations and threats of student boycotts.^[3]

Subsequently, she taught at Vanderbilt University and the University of Notre Dame.^[1]

Fiction writing

Although historical detective stories are now a flourishing genre, with Steven Saylor and Lindsey Davis being particularly prominent in the field of detective stories set in classical antiquity, back in 1978, when Aristotle Detective was first published, Doody was something of a pioneer in the genre. Recently she has added four more to the series featuring Aristotle as a 4th-century B.C. detective. There is also a novella, Anello di bronzo (Ring of Bronze), currently available only in Italian.

Doody's Aristotle books are published in Italy by Sellerio editore, which also produced a translation of The Alchemists. In France the mystery novels are published by 10/18. They are also available in Spanish, Portuguese and Greek; individual novels have recently appeared in Polish and Russian. The first Aristotle novel has also been published in German.