Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Fifteen Years Of Open-Access, Feminist Editing And Beyond: Laura L. Runge Transitions From Editor-In-Chief To Co-Director Of Abo Editorial Board As Of Abo Vol. 16, No. 1, Kelly Plante

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

This is an editor's note thanking Laura L. Runge for her more than 15 years service as the founding editor of ABO. The current editors thank Laura for her foundational work and we commit to carry on her editorial vision.

Retrospective: The Burney Centre, Mcgill University, 1945-2024, Peter Sabor

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

The origins of McGill University’s Burney Centre go back to 1945, when Joyce Hemlow was appointed to McGill’s Department of English. After publishing a major biography of Frances Burney in 1958, Hemlow initiated what she termed the Burney Project: a research centre devoted to producing scholarly editions of the journals and letters of Burney and her father, the music historian Charles Burney. The Frances Burney edition was completed, in 25 volumes, in 2019; five volumes of the Charles Burney edition have appeared to date, with a sixth and final volume to follow. Joyce Hemlow was succeeded as Director of the …

A Review Of The South Central Society For Eighteenth-Century Studies (Scsecs) Annual Conference (Pinehurst, Nc 19-21 February 2026), Laura Runge-Gordon

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

A conference review for the South-Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference held in Pinehurst, North Carolina February 19-21, 2026.  The conference was organized by SCECS President Catherine Parisian and featured the keynote speaker Peter Radford.

A Review Of Willow White's Feminist Comedy: Women Playwrights Of London (University Of Delaware Press, 2024), Mattie Burkert

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

A review of Willow White's Feminist Comedy: Women Playwrights of London by Mattie Burkert.

A Review Of Karen Bloom Gevirtz 'S The Apothecary's Wife (University Of California Press, 2024), Annika Mann

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

A review of Karen Bloom Gevirtz's The Apothecary's Wife by Annika Mann.

Teaching Frances Burney's Evelina With Netflix’S Bridgerton, Willow White

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

This pedagogical essay explores strategies for teaching Frances Burney's first novel Evelina (1778) through comparison with Netflix's popular series Bridgerton. The essay demonstrates how Bridgerton's widespread popularity has renewed interest in Georgian literature and provides an engaging and accessible entry point for undergraduate students to explore Evelina's themes of social anxiety, gender, and coming of age.

Teaching A Stand-Alone Course On Burney, Lorna J. Clark

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

This essay outlines a stand-alone course on Frances Burney, suggesting that she offers a good entry point into eighteenth-century studies. Given that she wrote in so many genres—novels, plays, journals, and letters—such a course avoids the narrowness which often marks a single author course. In twelve weeks, the course studied ten works: four novels, five plays (three comedies and two tragedies) and a selection of journals and letters. The latter describes well-known figures in Burney’s social and literary networks in eighteenth-century London and leads to discussion of techniques of the epistolary, of diary-writing and of women’s life-writing. Burney’s novels are …

Reading Burney’S Mastectomy Letter: Presentist Thinking And Personal Responses In The Classroom, Heather Meek

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

Frances Burney’s mastectomy letter, in its graphic and detailed depiction of the operation she underwent without anesthetic in 1811, does not always lend itself immediately to standard, scholarly classroom discussion. It tends, rather, to incite unusually intimate responses, as well as conversations about medicine and health today. In my teaching of the letter in literature courses at Université de Montréal over the course of the past 13 years, I have found that students are inclined to seize upon the subject of breast cancer as especially contemporary in its relevance and to share their own anecdotal knowledge of the disease. I …

Lifelong Learning: Approaches To Teaching Frances Burney’S The Wanderer To Adults, Miriam Al Jamil

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

The construction of a course for adult learners who are not studying for a qualification or credits but rather for enjoyment and engagement with learning for its own sake, requires an approach centered on needs which may not be entirely academic. Drawing on students’ individual life experiences while avoiding assumptions based on familiarity with the material shapes the course and offers many benefits. The essay is based on teaching Workers Education Association (WEA) courses and proposes the structure of a literature course on Frances Burney’s 1814 novel The Wanderer. It selects thematic content which resonates with older learners, such …

The Wanderers: Teaching The Literature Of Migration And Exile, Linda Zionkowski

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

In our current global landscape, exile—or forced, often permanent migration—appears a central rather than tangential experience, being driven by armed conflict, environmental destruction, economic collapse, and political repression. The climate on many university campuses reflects students’ awareness of and concern for the situation of displaced populations, and this awareness has influenced political discourse and political action inside and outside the classroom. My course titled “The Wanderers: Teaching the Literature of Migration and Exile” begins with  Frances Burney’s narration of exilic experiences in her life writings and The Wanderer. Burney’s texts offer a conceptual foundation for exploring instances of physical …

Introduction: Concise Collection On Teaching The Works Of Frances Burney, Dana Gliserman Kopans

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

This short essay introduces a Concise Collection special issue on teaching Frances Burney. The collection brings together a range of texts and approaches to them and demonstrates that Burney can be successfully taught to students outside of the graduate context.

The Secret(S) To Success: Genlis’S Guide To Raising A Foolproof Daughter, Jennifer Law-Sullivan

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

Abstract: “The Secret(s) to Success: Genlis’s Guide to Raising a Foolproof Daughter”

Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis’s Adèle et Théodore ou lettres sur l’éducation, first published in 1782, is an epistolary conduct novel that examines the question of how best to educate girls. Attempts to answer the question were exceedingly in vogue in the late 18^th century and can be traced back to Fénelon’s 1681 Traité de l’éducation des filles. Genlis’s novel offers a robust critique of previous education treatises, Rousseau, and a patriarchal society that did little to educate girls and mothers. She couches her critique in a …

A Review Of Books And Borrowing 1750–1830: An Analysis Of Scottish Borrowers' Registers, Sophie Coulombeau

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

No abstract provided.

Still Scribbling: Reflections On The Grub Street Project At Twenty Years, Allison Muri

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

This article reflects on twenty years of the Grub Street Project, assessing its sustainability and the design principles and editorial practices that have supported its continuity and coherence from 2005 to 2025.

A Review Of William Hayley: A Biographer’S Influence On Life Writing And Romantic Networks In The Long Eighteenth Century, Edited By Lisa Gee And Mark Crosby, Risako Nomura

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

A review of William Hayley: A Biographer’s Influence on Life Writing and Romantic Networks in the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Lisa Gee and Mark Crosby by Risako Nomura

A Review Of Deborah Weiss's Women And Madness In The Early Romantic Novel: Injured Minds, Ruined Lives, Jennifer L. Nault Ms

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

A review of Women and Madness in the Early Romantic Novel by Jennifer Nault.

Review Of Female Printmakers, Printsellers, And Print Publishers In The Eighteenth Century: The Imprint Of Women, C. 1700-1830, Edited By Cristina S. Martinez And Cynthia E. Roman, Michelle Levy

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

Female Printmakers, Printsellers, and Print Publishers in the Eighteenth Century is a far-reaching collection of fifteen essays that addresses three main topics: women artists who made prints, women who were engaged in making prints, and the business of printmaking and printselling as engaged in by women. The collection addresses both known artists (like Angelika Kauffman) and printmakers (like Mary Darly), but also relatively obscure women, like Laura Piranesi, daughter of Giovanni, and Jane Hogarth, William Hogarth’s widow

Learning From The Legacies Of Phillis Wheatley Peters: A Collaborative Pedagogical Public Humanities Project, Sandra Zagarell

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

“’Learning from the Legacies of Phillis Wheatley Peters’: A Collaborative Pedagogical Public Humanities Project” is an account of a Spring, 2024 Zoom and web-based public humanities project for primary, secondary and post-secondary teachers interested in learning more about African-born American poet Phillis Wheatley Peters (c.1746-1784) and developing writing-based curricular materials about her. Foregrounding the levels of pedagogy the project involved, the essay describes leaders’ planning processes and our sessions with teacher-participants and provides links to the materials the teachers prepared. The instructional approaches the essay details can be adapted by educators working in a wide variety of classroom settings.

Teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters’S “On Being Brought From Africa To America” For The First Time In An Online Undergraduate Women’S Literature Course, Shazia Khan

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

As one of Phillis Wheatley Peters’ most famous poems, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” is often introduced to undergraduates; however, it is also an often-misunderstood text by undergraduate and graduate students alike when they first read it. Students often believe that Wheatley Peters is happy about her condition as an enslaved person in America and out of Africa. But upon deeper analysis of her word choice, use of punctuation, and biblical references, a reader can see her unique voice as an enslaved person criticizing slavery through sarcasm. Such responses can discourage instructors from teaching the poem, especially in …

Teaching Phillis Wheatley (Peters) As A Working Artist, Lenora Warren

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

In recent years, the challenge of teaching the poetry of Phillis Wheatley (Peters) has been managing my students’ expectations of what constitutes “representative” African American literature and coming to a more comprehensive idea of constitutes both “political” and black art. In managing some initial confusion around Wheatley’s muted response to her enslavement I have landed on presenting Wheatley’s insistence of her work as a poet as “labour” to be the most interesting tact to take with students. For Wheatley it is the imperative of becoming a poet that allows her access to what might be seen as a more vital …

Teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters’S Morals On Words And Actions In American Literature To 1860, Don Holmes

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

This article argues that teaching Phillis Wheatley-Peters (c. 1753-1784) as a moral authority during the American Revolution provides a robust historical framework for fostering an empowering humanism in students. When Phillis Wheatley Peters wrote to Indigenous Mohegan Minister Samson Occom (1723-1792) in 1774, she expressed satisfaction with his reasons for recognizing the conditions faced by enslaved Africans in North America. Her didactic perspective aimed to enlighten her readers about the limitations of the human condition: “This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically …

Introduction: Concise Collection On Teaching The Works Of Phillis Wheatley Peters, Part Ii, Mona Narain, Sarah Ruffing Robbins

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

This short essay introduces part two of a two-part Concise Collections special issue on teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters. It discusses how the life and works of the poet can be taught in various educational settings.

Framing Affect: Close Up To Feeling With Women At The Eighteenth-Century Theatre On The Twenty-First Century Screen, Ros M. Ballaster Professor

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

Period films and television dramas of the twenty-first century use scenes of attendance at the theatre by women in the (long) eighteenth century as a test of their capacity to feel. Such scenes provide an opportunity to measure the competing affordances of screen and stage regarding affect in the eighteenth century and our present moment. Explored are scenes of theatrical affect from Dangerous Liaisons (1998) to The Duchess (2008), Harlots (2017), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Bridgerton (2020). The figure of the liberated, educated, and aesthetically sensitive woman serves in period fiction on stage, screen and page more …

“[B]Oth In Body And Mind”: Gothic, Affect, And Power In Eliza Parsons’S The Mysterious Warning (1796), Rayna Rosenova

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

Drawing on recent enquiries into how affect theory could enhance our understanding of eighteenth-century fiction, this article offers a reading of Eliza Parsons’s Gothic novel The Mysterious Warning (1796) to examine how affective resonances in the text are used to codify relations of power. It therefore argues that the power dynamics between the characters are enacted through encounters with human agents and material objects, such as letters and haunting (dis)embodied voices. The article further suggests that affective intensities in the novel, articulated through the language of sensibility typical of mid- and late eighteenth-century writing, generate an ensuing imbalance of power, …

Association, Affect, And Material Reading Practices Of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Renee Harris

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

At the end of the eighteenth century, reading practice was shifting from an embodied, affective exercise to a detached cognitive one. This essay examines how debates about truth and knowledge diverged along disciplinary and gender lines during this critical transition. The essay traces the influence of association psychology—particularly the theories of David Hartley and Joseph Priestley—on Romantic-era poets including Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Through Feminist Formalist Analysis attuned to affect and cognition, this essay demonstrates how Barbauld's poetic montages challenge the period's scientific discourse. Her "Inventory of the Furniture in Dr. Priestley's Study" and two "Hill of …

The Gendered Duality Of Coldness In The Portrayals Of Eliza Hayley, Francesca Blanch-Serrat

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

In the eighteenth century, coldness was defined, on the one hand, in relation to the body and the senses (a body that is lacking in heat) and on the other, to emotion (an individual lacking in passion). It was linked to illness and disability (Turner, 2012), equated to death, seen as both a cause and effect of physical decline and older age, and used as a synonym for low libido and infertility (Toulalan, 2015). In contrast to these negative connotations, coldness was also regarded as a remedy to temper the passions and to ensure longevity (Yallop, 2015), and taking cold …

Curious Objects: Form And Feeling In Mary Leapor's Thing Poems, James Metcalf

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

Mary Leapor (1722–1746) has long been recognized as something of a curiosity: a Northamptonshire kitchen maid with a rudimentary education who died at the age of 24, but who also wrote two volumes of poetry. In this essay I read Leapor’s “thing poems” to show how curiosity is also a supervening affective regime in her poetics. Minor and marginal, fixated by perverse objects which tend more to derail than deepen the production of knowledge, curiosity is an unsettling mode of inquiry because of its imaginative attachment to the strange stuff lurking within the ordinary as a diminished site of aesthetic …

Managerial Forms: Narrative, Information, And Household Government In The Diaries Of Sarah Cowper, Robert Stearn

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

The diary of Sarah Cowper (written 1700-16) is characterized by elaborate techniques of information management and a sustained attention to the fractious emotional dynamics of her household. Bringing together historical scholarship on domestic service and literary analyses of organizing practices in print and manuscript, the article argues that the finding devices in Cowper’s seven-volume diary disclose a practical knowledge both textual and social—one which took the affective dynamics of the household as its object, but which was also shaped by and afloat in those dynamics. The article is in two parts. The first explores how Cowper’s information management practices were …

Epic Anger And Shame In Lucy Hutchinson’S Order And Disorder, Mary Trull

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

In his didactic epic, De rerum natura, the Roman poet Lucretius rejects the unity of affect and genre in Homeric epic. Instead, in Lucretius anger is anti-heroic: the human race is demeaned by fear, cowering before a fabricated vision of vengeful gods. The gods are not angry, and human fear is therefore absurd, even shameful, since it leads to outrageous acts of appeasement that violate basic human decency. When Lucy Hutchinson, the first English translator of the full De rerum natura, approached the task of writing an epic version of the book of Genesis, affect was already a central, …

Queer Excess And Hybrid History In Elizabeth Cary’S Edward Ii, Kelley K. Glasgow

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

Elizabeth Cary’s prose history The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II (1627) follows the fourteenth-century king of England, whose love affairs with his favorite courtiers ultimately resulted in his overthrow and execution. She identifies Edward’s queerness, and his resulting lack of emotional control, as central to his inability to govern England, and as an example of the dangers of excessive emotions for her readers. Because of Edward II’s complicated publishing and attribution history, much of the scholarly effort around this text has been spent attempting to interpret it through Cary’s personal life and political aims. …