She is the Edgar F. Shannon Professor Emerita at the University of Virginia and former President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Modern Language Association.
[1] She specializes in eighteenth-century English Literature and also writes cultural criticism on varied subjects such as boredom, gossip, and feminism.
"With remarkable breadth of reference, Spacks has written more extensively than any other feminist critic on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English narrative".
[2] Spacks was born to Norman and Lillian Talcott Meyer in San Francisco, California.
[3] She has been the chair of the board of directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and a trustee of the National Humanities Center.