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2008 Burke Scholar-in-Residence Devoney Looser, author of British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820,  uses the correspondence of Austen contemporary Jane Porter to hypothesize about Jane Austen's experiences in Bath, England.

Associate Professor of English and literature coordinator at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Dr. Looser completed a research residency in the Jane Austen Collection of Goucher’s Julia Rogers Library from March 3 to 7, 2008. 

A dedicated Austen scholar, Looser edited the collection Jane Austen and Discourses of Feminism, and she has written numerous articles on the author, including ’I Always Take the Part of My Own Sex’ Emma’s Mrs. Elton and the Rights of Women, "Old Dogs and New Tricks: Austen’s Female Elders, Jane Austen ‘Responds’ to the Men’s Movement, andJane Austen, Feminist Literary Criticism, and a Fourth ‘R’: Reassessment. She has contributed to recent books on Austen as the author of chapters such as Jane Austen in the Twenty-First Century, Reading Jane Austen and Rewriting ‘Herstory,’ and Feminist Implications of the Silver Screen Austen. Among other projects, Looser is also now working on two book-length projects: British Women Writers and Old Age, 1750-1850 and Another Jane: Jane Porter, Austen’s Contemporary.