Merve Emre Books
Merve Emre is a Turkish-American literary critic, essayist, and professor of English at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on modernism, affect theory, and the history of psychology and personality.
Known for: The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
Books by Merve Emre
The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
A cultural and intellectual history of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, this book explores how two women—Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers—created one of the most influential psychological tools of the twentieth century. Drawing on archives, letters, and interviews, Merve Emre traces how their work shaped modern ideas of personality, selfhood, and corporate management, revealing the social and gendered forces behind the test’s enduring popularity.
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Early Life of Katharine Cook Briggs
Katharine Cook Briggs grew up at the turn of the twentieth century, in a social world where women’s intellectual pursuits were often confined to the domestic space. Yet she insisted that the mind of a mother must be as rigorous as that of any scholar. Her fascination with child development began in ...
From The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
Formation of Isabel Briggs Myers’s Ideas
Isabel grew up in the shadow and glow of her mother’s theories. From an early age, she absorbed Katharine’s belief that studying personality was a moral duty. Yet Isabel’s temperament differed from her mother’s: less mystical, more pragmatic, and deeply attuned to the social currents of her time. Af...
From The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
About Merve Emre
Merve Emre is a Turkish-American literary critic, essayist, and professor of English at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on modernism, affect theory, and the history of psychology and personality. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of several acclaimed works of l...
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Merve Emre is a Turkish-American literary critic, essayist, and professor of English at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on modernism, affect theory, and the history of psychology and personality. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of several acclaimed works of l...
Merve Emre is a Turkish-American literary critic, essayist, and professor of English at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on modernism, affect theory, and the history of psychology and personality. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of several acclaimed works of literary criticism and cultural history.
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Merve Emre is a Turkish-American literary critic, essayist, and professor of English at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on modernism, affect theory, and the history of psychology and personality.
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