Katie Roiphe

Katie Roiphe is an American author, journalist, and cultural critic whose work examines gender, power, and intellectual life. Roiphe received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and Radcliffe College and earned a doctorate in English literature from Princeton University. She is a professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and serves as director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program.

Roiphe is known for the nonfiction book "The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus," which brought her national attention. The book addresses issues of violence against women, victimization, and contemporary feminist thought, offering critical perspectives on the direction of women's rights. Roiphe also authored "Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End" and "Uncommon Arrangements," a study of writers and marriage. Her novel "Still She Haunts Me" imagines the relationship between Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the inspiration for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

Roiphe's book "The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End" explores mortality through the final days of six writers and artists, including Susan Sontag, John Updike, Sigmund Freud, Dylan Thomas, and Maurice Sendak. The book draws on extensive research and interviews with family, friends, and caretakers. It received critical attention from publications such as Los Angeles Times and People.

Roiphe also wrote "The Power Notebooks," a book that explores female power and its absence. Composed in fragments and inspired by her lifelong journals, the book examines the public and private lives of women writers, including Simone de Beauvoir, Mary McCarthy, and Sylvia Plath. Roiphe has described this work as part of her ongoing effort to question oversimplified political language and to explore the complexities of experience.

Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, Vogue, Esquire, Slate, and The Paris Review, among others. Roiphe's work in literature, feminism, and cultural criticism has established her as a writer who challenges prevailing ideas and engages deeply with contemporary debates.