• Dr.art. in Comparative Literature, University of Bergen, 1985
• Mag.art. in Comparative Literature, University of Bergen, 1980
• Cand.mag. in French, Spanish and Comparative Literature, University of Bergen, 1976

Research Interests:  

Toril Moi has three broad areas of interest: feminist theory and women's writing; the intersection of literature, philosophy and aesthetics; and ordinary language philosophy in the tradition of Wittgenstein, Cavell and Austin.

Toril Moi also works on theater. In her work on literature and theater she is particularly interested in the emergence of modernism in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Her books include Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985; 2nd edition 2002), Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman (1994; second edition with a major new introduction 2008); and What Is a Woman? And Other Essays (1999), republished in a shorter version as Sex, Gender and the Body (2005). She is the editor of The Kristeva Reader (1986), and of French Feminist Thought (1987).

In 2006, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy, was published in English by Oxford University Press and in Norwegian by Pax Forlag (Oslo). The book won the MLA's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for the best book in Comparative Literary Studies in 2007. It is now available in paperback.

Toril Moi now works on three projects: (1) The Emergence of European Modernism 1870-1914; (2) Feminist Theory and Women Writers; and (3) "Pictures of Language": on the vision of language in ordinary language philosophy. She also continues to work on Henrik Ibsen's plays.

Toril Moi enjoys working with students at all levels. She won Duke's University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award in 1998, and the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Graduate Students in 2008.

In her native Norway, Toril Moi writes a regular column for the financial newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

Books

•  Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy.  Oxford University Press, 2006 (xvi + 396 pp.). Norwegian translation: Ibsens modernisme, translated by Agnete Øye (Oslo: Pax, 2006; 502 pp.) English language paperback published 2008.
•  Sex, Gender and the Body: The Student Edition of What Is a Woman?.  Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 . (Contains the first two essays in What Is a Woman? and a new preface.)
•  Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman.  2nd edition, with a major new introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008 . The new edition was published in Norwegian (Gyldendal, 2008) as Simone de Beauvoir: en intellektuell kvinne blir til. It will be published in French in 2010, by Flammarion Philosophie.

• T. Moi. "'I am not a woman writer': About Women, Literature and Feminist Theory Today." Feminist Theory (UK) 9.3 (December, 2008): 259-71. Norwegian version: 'Jeg er ikke en kvinnelig forfatter', Samtiden (Oslo), no. 3, 2008, pp. 6-21. An excerpt printed in Morgenbladet (Oslo), 12 September 2008, pp. 22-24.
• T. Moi. "Ibsen in Exile: Peer Gynt, or the Difficulty of Becoming a Poet in Norway." Field Day Review (Dublin) .4 (September, 2008): 24-39.
• T. Moi. "‘I Am Not a Feminist, But…’ How Feminism Became the F-word." PMLA 121.5 (October, 2006): 1735-41. Reprinted in Cooling Out - On the Paradox of Feminism, edited by Sabine Schaschl, Bettina Steinbrügge and René Zechlin (Basel; Lüneburg; Cork: JRP/Ringier; Kunsthaus Baselland; Halle für Kunst; Lewis Glucksman Gallery 2008), 48-56.] [Translated into German in the same volume as “‘Ich bin zwar keine Feministin, aber...’ Wie aus dem Feminismus ein F-Wort wurde,” Cooling Out, 218-28.]
• "From Femininity to Finitude: Freud, Lacan and Feminism, Again." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 29.3 (Spring, 2004): 841-78. [Reprinted in Iréne Matthis, ed., Dialogues on Sexuality, Gender, and Psychoanalysis (London: Karnac Books, 2004, pp. 93-135]. Translated as “Fra kvinnelighet til begrensethet: Freud, Lacan og feminisme, nok en gang.” Translated by Agnete Øye. Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning (Norway), no. 4, 2007, pp. 6-35.
• "While We Wait: The English Translation of The Second Sex." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27.4 (Summer, 2002): 1005-36. [Reprinted in Emily R. Grosholz, ed. The Philosophical Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, Oxford: Clarendon Press (Oxford University Press), 2004, 37-68.]

•  "Meaning What We Say: The 'Politics of Theory' and the Responsibility of Intellectuals." The Philosophical Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir Ed. Emily Grosholz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 139-60. Trans. by the author as: "Å mene det vi sier: om de intellektuelles ansvar", Samtiden, no. 1 (2003), 60-67