Mo Moulton is currently a senior lecturer in the history department of the University of Birmingham. They earned their PhD in history from Brown University in 2010 and taught in the History & Literature program at Harvard University for six years. Their previous book, Ireland and the Irish in Interwar England, was named a 2014 “Book of the Year” by History Today and was the runner-up for the Royal History Society’s 2015 Whitfield Prize for first book in British or Irish history.Their new book is The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women.
From Moulton's Q&A with History Journal:
History: To start off, how did you decide on the title of your book, Mutual Admiration Society?Learn more about The Mutual Admiration Society at the Basic Books website.
Moulton: The book is the story of a group of friends who formed a writing group at Oxford in 1912. They called themselves the “Mutual Admiration Society,” to pre-empt anyone else calling them that first! I chose it as my title because I think it captureis how funny, irreverent, but also ultimately fearless these women were.
History: What inspired you to research and write about these women?
Moulton: I read Dorothy L. Sayers’ brilliant novel about women and academic life, Gaudy Night (1935). I instantly wanted to know more about that female scholarly community, and was surprised to find that most biographers focus on her relationships with men rather than her friendships with women. So I started digging and was thrilled to discover a set of stories that would let me delve into questions about culture, gender, sexuality, and...[read on]
The Page 99 Test: The Mutual Admiration Society.
--Marshal Zeringue