Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Historian, Is Dead at 65 By MARGALIT FOX
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, a noted historian and women's studies scholar who roiled both disciplines with her transition from Marxist-inclined feminist to conservative public intellectual, died on Tuesday in Atlanta. She was 65 and had lived in Atlanta for many years.
Ms. Fox-Genovese's husband, the historian Eugene D. Genovese, confirmed the death, citing no specific cause. He said that his wife had lived with multiple sclerosis for the last 15 years and that her health had declined after she underwent major surgery in October.
At her death, Ms. Fox-Genovese was the Eléonore Raoul professor of the humanities at Emory University. In 1986, she founded the university's Institute for Women's Studies and was its director until 1991.
Originally trained as a historian of 18th-century France, Ms. Fox- Genovese became known for her studies of women in the antebellum South, among them "Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South" (University of North Carolina, 1988) and "To Be Worthy of God's Favor: Southern Women's Defense and Critique of Slavery" (Gettysburg College, 1993).
With her husband, a well-known historian of American slavery, Ms. Fox- Genovese wrote "The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview" (Cambridge University), published in 2005.
Ms. Fox-Genovese was also known for two books about feminism that charted her evolving stance toward the movement. In the first, "Feminism Without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism" (University of North Carolina, 1991), she took the women's movement to task for reflecting — too narrowly, she felt — the concerns of middle-class white women.
Reviewing Ms. Fox-Genovese's book in The New York Times Book Review, Rosemary L. Bray called it "insightful and important," adding: "It's possible that the tough questions she asks — about abortion, pornography and the ubiquitous canon wars — might finally inspire the thoughtful debate and civilized discourse we've been missing."
Writing in the Book Review in 1996, Mary Gordon had this to say about Ms. Fox-Genovese's next book on the subject, "Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life: How Today's Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch With the Real Concerns of Women" (Nan A. Talese):
"When we last left Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, at the end of 'Feminism Without Illusions,' she was deploring people who 'find it easy to blame feminism for some of the most disturbing aspects of modern life: divorce, latchkey children, teenage alcoholism, domestic violence, the sexual abuse of children.' Five years later, it seems she has become one of the people she warned us about."
Ms. Fox-Genovese, who in her early work supported abortion, though with reservations, would in later years equate it with murder. She would also argue publicly that the women's movement had been disastrous, and extol the virtues of traditional marriage and family.
In interviews and in her writings, Ms. Fox-Genovese ascribed her political transformation in part to her growing embrace of religion. Reared in a household of secular intellectuals, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1995.
Elizabeth Ann Fox, known as Betsey, was born in Boston on May 28, 1941; her father, Edward Whiting Fox, was a prominent historian who served in the State Department in the Truman administration. She earned a bachelor's degree in history and French from Bryn Mawr in 1963; a master's in history from Harvard in 1966; and a Ph.D. in history, also from Harvard, in 1974.
In 1969, she married Mr. Genovese, with whom she founded the journal Marxist Perspectives in the late 1970's. Mr. Genovese also moved rightward over the years, his work appearing increasingly in conservative publications. Before joining the Emory faculty in 1986, Ms. Fox-Genovese taught at the University of Rochester and the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Besides her husband, Ms. Fox-Genovese is survived by a brother, Edward Whiting Fox Jr., of Indianapolis; and a sister, Rebecca MacMillan Fox, of Miami.
In 1993, in what must have seemed an exquisite irony, Ms. Fox- Genovese, along with Emory University, was named in a highly publicized suit alleging sexual discrimination and harassment. The suit was filed by L. Virginia Gould, a former graduate student of Ms. Fox-Genovese's who was later associate director of the Institute for Women's Studies.
Ms. Gould charged that Ms. Fox-Genovese harassed her psychologically and required her to perform personal services, like giving parties, that would not have been asked of a male subordinate. In 1996, the university settled the suit out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Ms. Fox-Genovese's other books include "The Origins of Physiocracy: Economic Revolution and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century France" (Cornell University, 1976), and, with her husband, "Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism" (Oxford University, 1983).
In 2003, President Bush awarded her the National Humanities Medal.