URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — The University of Illinois ranked among the top ten schools in the country for female author representation, based on a study from Preply.
Using data from Open Syllabus, language learning platform Preply analyzed the English Literature syllabi at 170 colleges nationwide to determine which reading lists most prominently represented female writers. An AI name classifier was used to determine the gender of the writers, then those left undetermined were manually researched. They found that out of the top twenty authors that appeared across syllabi, fifteen were male.
The U of I ranked No. 9 on the list for female writer representation in English Literature courses. Their reading lists had a 38.2% proportion of female to male authors.
Another Illinois college, Western Illinois University, took the very top spot with a syllabus made up of nearly 45% female writers. San Diego’s Community College District and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville both shared second place at 43.6%. Cyprus College in California placed third with a 42.1% split.
Among Preply’s findings, the Illinois streak continued with Sandra Cisneros — an Illinoisan author who ranked among the top 15 most-studied female authors. Cisneros is best known for her novel, The House on Mango Street.
Preply provided a full list of the top 20 most-studied female writers:
- Kate Chopin
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Virginia Woolf
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Jane Austen
- Toni Morrison
- Alice Walker
- Flannery O’Connor
- Susan Glaspell
- Harriet A. Jacobs
- Shirley Jackson
- Joyce Carol Oates
- Sandra Cisneros
- Charlotte Bronte
- Aphra Behn
- Lorraine Hansberry
- Nella Larsen
- Leslie Marmon Silko
- Emily Bronte
