Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review Of Giving Birth In Eighteenth-Century England, By Sarah Fox, Chelsea Phillips

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A Review of Giving Birth in Eighteenth-Century England, by Sarah Fox

Fierce Allegories: Teaching Anne Finch’S Fables In A Course On Satire, Sharon Smith

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay outlines an approach to integrating Anne Finch’s work into an advanced undergraduate and/or graduate course on eighteenth-century satire, focusing particularly on her satirical verse fables. This approach encourages students to question common critical assumptions about women and satire, most particularly that women avoided satire due to its association with aggression and politics—assumptions Finch’s fables are well-suited to challenge. The essay focuses particularly on Finch’s verse fables "Upon an Impropable Undertaking," “The Eagle, the Sow, and the Cat,” and “The Owl Describing Her Young Ones.” In these poems, written in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, Finch employs violent …

Havens And Covens: Pregnancy, Witchcraft, And Female Power In Cotton Mather’S “Retired Elizabeth”, Brittney A. Hatchett

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Over the decades, scholars have been holding two adjacent conversations about witchcraft and gender in Cotton Mather’s works that surprisingly have not been put in dialogue. On the one hand, they have examined Mather’s witchcraft ideology and motivations for involving himself in the Salem witch trials. On the other hand, scholars have discussed how Mather seeks to exert control over women spiritually and physically. However, no one has yet explored how these conversations might converge. I suggest that we can see how Mather intertwines discourses of witchcraft and gender in the section titled “Retired Elizabeth” in The Angel of Bethesda. …

“Before I Am Quite Forgot": Women’S Critical Literary Biography And The Future, Susan Carlile

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

“‘Before I am Quite Forgot’: Women’s Critical Literary Biography and the Future” extends the conversation about literary “worth” in the twenty-first century as it still judges and ignores women authors of the past. Specifically, this essay explores the role of women’s literary historical biography as a primary marker of worth and as a means of shaping legacy. I also discuss my (perhaps more non-traditional) experience—both my personal circumstances and particular material conditions—writing the critical biography Charlotte Lennox: An Independent Mind. Without a substantial biography that shows the scope of Lennox’s mind, her significant corpus, and her interventions in literary history …

Craftivism And Cottonian Bindings: “The Handiwork Of Greta Hall”, Helen Williams

Criticism

Edith Southey, Edith May Southey, and Sara Coleridge Jr. covered Robert Southey’s books in vibrantly printed dress fabrics, creating a collection that came to be called “the Cottonian Library.” This article is a manifesto for Cottonian bookbinding to be studied as feminist literary activism. It argues for the importance of looking beyond the book trades to the domestic and unremunerated ways in which women contributed to Romantic period book design, suggesting that the new feminist Craftivism can prompt us to historicize and to acknowledge the significance of Cottonian bookbinding as a practice that cannot be omitted from any history of …

The Manifestation Of Intra Gender Oppression In Margaret Atwood’S The Handmaid’S Tale As Results From Intentional Patriarchal Power Structures, Aliyah Browning

The Compass

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has long been studied for its cautionary warnings about sexist ideologies that exist between men and women; seldom has it been analyzed for instances of intra gender oppression. Intra gender oppression, which this thesis seeks to define and highlight through the novel’s context, offers artificial forms of power to those in oppressed classes, enough to attract women themselves to participate in the indoctrination and policing of their own sex. This essay will highlight the ways in which Atwood’s dystopia parallels sexist beliefs held by societies past and present.

Words On Screens: Women’S Names In Mobile Phone Contact Lists In Jordan, Ibrahim Darwish, Noora Abu Ain

Association of Arab Universities Journal for Arts مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للآداب

This study investigates how male Jordanians store the names of their female relatives in mobile phones contact lists. The source of the data is a small-scale survey of 90 male Jordanians from three equal age cohorts: young (18-35), middle-aged (36-49) and old (+50). The participants’ responses were coded in an excel sheet in which each token was coded for either [r] (real name) or [p] (pseudonym). Using Rbrul for quantitative analysis, the data were analysed within the framework of variationist sociolinguistics. The results show that male Jordanian city dwellers store the real names of their female relatives in mobile phone …

Where Are The Women?: An Ecofeminist Reading Of William Golding’S Lord Of The Flies, Hawk Chang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The absence of female characters and their voices in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) has been previously examined. On the surface, this fiction focuses on the struggle and survival of a group of boys who are left alone on a Pacific island against the background of nuclear warfare. The only presence of women in the story seems to be the aunt via a boy’s narration. However, when approaching the fiction through the lens of ecofeminism, we can find a range of feminized entities which are metaphorically embodied in the natural surroundings of the secluded island. The boys’ interactions …

Review Of Eighteenth-Century Women’S Writing And The Methodist Media Revolution, By Andrew O. Winckles, Rebecca Nesvet

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Feminine Agency In Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice And Antony And Cleopatra, Grace Gronowski

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Light And Darkness In The Epiphanies Of Henry James’ Heroines, Rose Grosskopf

The Criterion

The famed author Henry James, who lived from 1843 to 1916, occupies a middle-ground between the romantic authors of the nineteenth century and the modernists of the twentieth. Two of his novels, The Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square, demonstrate his evolving sensibilities, as he bridges the traditional and the modern by marrying romantic stories with unconventional conclusions. His technique is present in his use of light symbolism, which, due to an etymological connection from the era of Enlightenment, has accompanied moments of learning and understanding. Through his symbolic and literary gestures, James explores a nuanced definition of “brightness,” …

Melusine, Invisible Leadership And The Future (In The Past), Jan Shaw

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This paper considers the operation of “invisible” leadership in the figure of Melusine from the late Middle English romance Melusine. By invoking contemporary leadership theory, this paper identifies leadership maneuvers in Melusine that are similar to those often practiced by women today, but the discourses of gender identity then ultimately render Melusine’s leadership invisible, just as leadership discourses today often render female leadership invisible. By uncovering the operation of “invisible” leadership in the figure of Melusine and identifying commonalities with the leadership of women today, this paper aims to improve our understanding of the contemporary problem of the marked …

Review Of Women’S Periodicals And Print Culture In Britain, 1690–1820s: The Long Eighteenth Century, Lisa Maruca

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of Women’s Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain

At Home In The Revolution: What Women Said And Did In 1916: An Interview With Lucy Mcdiarmid

Critical Inquiries Into Irish Studies

Lucy McDiarmid is a scholar and writer. Her academic interest in cultural politics, especially quirky, colorful, suggestive episodes, is exemplified by The Irish Art of Controversy (2005) and Poets and the Peacock Dinner: the literary history of a meal (2014; paperback 2016). She is a former fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and of the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Her most recent monograph is At Home in the Revolution: what women said and did in 1916 (published 2015). The Vibrant House: Irish Writers and Domestic Space (co-edited with Rhona Richman Kenneally) was published …

Women & Tolkien: Amazons, Valkyries, Feminists, And Slashers, Robin A. Reid Dr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper reports on an early pilot project that asks women who self identify as readers or fans of Tolkien's work and/or teachers who have taught Tolkien's work, and/or scholars who have published on Tolkien's work to answer a few open-ended questions about their reasons for enjoying his work. By "women," I mean anybody who identifies as a woman. By "Tolkien's work," I mean any of his published novels, stories, poems, or academic essays. The study arises from the question that is often asked of fans of Tolkien's work: why do women so enjoy it, given the relatively minor narrative …

Change For Women, Change The World, Kiana Stewart, Dr. Daryl Lee

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My project goal was to translate from French to English significant chapters of a study on gender-based violence (GBV) in Senegal documented by Dr. Fatou Diop Sall. Dr Sall is the head coordinator of GESTES, a Senegalese research group focused on gender equality. A previous group of BYU students and ORCA recipients translated sections of the document that focused on domestic violence, and published the translation with the WomanStats Project, which is the largest statistical database regarding the status of women in the world (Hudson, 2015). The chapters I translated deal with GBV in different spheres, specifically educational spaces (schools, …

Anna Larpent And Shakespeare, Fiona Ritchie

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Anna Larpent (1758-1832) is a crucial figure in theater history and the reception of Shakespeare since drama was a central part of her life. Larpent was a meticulous diarist: the Huntington Library holds seventeen volumes of her journal covering the period 1773-1830. These diaries shed significant light on the part Shakespeare played in her life and contain her detailed opinions of his works as she experienced them both on the page and on the stage in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. Larpent experienced Shakespeare’s works in a variety of forms: she sees Shakespeare’s plays performed, both professionally and by …

Wishing For The Watch Face In Jonathan Swift’S “The Progress Of Beauty”, Jantina Ellens

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This article illuminates the technological underpinnings of Jonathan Swift’s satire, “The Progress of Beauty” (1719), by exploring how eighteenth-century poetics of beauty and scientific progress pit human against automaton. This article ranges from the ego of masculine technological display to women’s self-identification with the automaton to suggest that Swift’s speaker blazons the aging prostitute’s body with the hope that it might resurrect a lost ideal, the beautiful watch face. Instead, readers are confronted with the vision of Celia who, with her chipped paint, greasy joints, and faulty mechanisms, reminds them that humanity continues to break through its enamel. When readers …

Petticoats And Spurs: Female Armor In Spenser's "Faerie Queene" And Pope's "The Rape Of The Lock", Patrick D. Wilks

The Criterion

Both Britomart in Spenser’s Book 3, Canto 1 of Faerie Queene and Belinda in Pope’s The Rape of The Lock wear their clothes and (in Belinda’s case) makeup as their armor, both literally and figuratively. Both suffer unwanted advances, their image publicly besmirched as a result. Even though Belinda dresses to show off her beauty and Britomart dresses to conceal it, both women use their array as protection from cruel male world around them. Both feel safe, and both women have this safety violated and attack to defend their honor.

For Spenser, Chastity is a virtue to be held in …

What's In A Name? New Vision For Abo, Laura Runge

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Introduction to the new vision statements for the journal.

Embodying Character, Adapting Communication; Or, The Senses And Sensibilities Of Epistolarity And New Media In The Classroom, Jodi L. Wyett

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay describes a classroom role-playing activity that incorporates both modern social media and the tools of eighteenth-century composition. Students communicate with each other as characters in the assigned novel, by either texting, tweeting, or writing longhand with quill pens. The exercise aims to help students grasp the sometimes-elusive historical contexts of eighteenth-century writing as well as the ways in which we interpret and adapt those contexts and their attendant modes of communication when we read for meaning in our own moment. My experiences suggest that the activity is particularly effective at helping students to reflect upon their own interpretive …

“Less Of The Heroine Than The Woman”: Parsing Gender In The British Novel, Susan Carlile

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay offers two methods that will help students resist the temptation to judge eighteenth-century novels by twenty-first-century standards. These methods prompt students to parse the question of whether female protagonists in novels—in this case, Daniel Defoe’s Roxana (1724), Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas (1759), and Charlotte Lennox’s Sophia (1762)—are portrayed as perfect models or as complex humans. The first method asks them to engage with definitions of the term “heroine,” and the second method uses word clouds to extend their thinking about the complexity of embodying a mid-eighteenth-century female identity.

“Get Married Or Teach School”: Women’S Writing And Women’S Education In Antebellum America, Lindsey Sheppard

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

Abstract: This article will examine the views expressed by American female writers about the roles of women and purposes of women’s education in the early 19th century. During the antebellum period (1820-1860), the American education system prepared white female students for two roles: to be teachers before marriage and to be ideal wives and mothers. This society believed that women, as wives and mothers, should manage the home and instill traditional American and Christian values in their children. During this period, women wrote a large body of nonfiction articles about social issues, such as education reform, and the roles of …

Women In Engineering: Shifting The Balance, Samuel A. Barnhart

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This writing was submitted as the final research paper for my English class. The paper includes analysis of multiple sources and my original research done via survey of female engineering students at the University of Dayton. The paper underwent several peer reviews in class, assessed by the professor before submission, and was critiqued at the Write Place before submission.

Barbara D’Austria: Women And Religious Upheaval In 16th-Century Europe, Victoria Fox, Brandie Siegfried

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to recover source documents regarding the life of a significant 16th-century woman who has been otherwise largely left out of history. Barbara d’Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary, was an intensely religious and ambitious woman who was said to have used her own funds to provide shelter for women who had been displaced by an earthquake. But other than this general knowledge, and a few poems written at her marriage celebration by Torquato Tasso, little else has been developed regarding her life and influence. After scouring …

Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Contributions To Transcendentalism, Sarah Kingston

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Review Of Marjo Kaartinen, Breast Cancer In The Eighteenth Century, Marie Mulvey-Roberts

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Revamping The Roles Of Women In Vampire Film Or Women Who Suck The Life Out Of You, Christy Freadreacea

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Perilous And Fair: Women In The Works And Life Of J.R.R. Tolkien (2015) Ed. Janet Brennan Croft And Leslie A. Donovan, Deidre A. Dawson

Journal of Tolkien Research

Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien (2015), ed. by Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan

Review Of Amanda E. Herbert, Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, And Friendship In Early Modern Britain, Angela Rehbein

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of Amanda E. Herbert, Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain. New Haven: Yale UP, 2014. xi, 256 pages: illustrations; 24 cm. ISBN 978-0-300-17740-4.