After hiking 1,000+ miles of the Appalachian Trail (from the Smokies of North Carolina to the corn fields of Pennsylvania), I finally allowed myself the chance to read Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I had been putting this off, not wanting another woman's long-distance hike to muddy my own, until a friend let me borrow her … Continue reading “Wild,” a Book Review
feminism
Teaching LEMONADE in 19th-Century American Lit
I'm a 19th-century Americanist and my syllabi for courses taught in early American lit have covered a wide span of women's literature. I've always gone for non-canonical authors and approaches that critique a male-dominated, colonialist canon. But aside from teaching the usual suspects, slave narratives such as Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave … Continue reading Teaching LEMONADE in 19th-Century American Lit
How do we write at the intersection of race and gender?
My 8am class has turned into a hotbed of burning questions and research. How this happened since my last post about the grueling 8am time slot, I can barely tell... but I think it started when I canceled the reading for a day and assigned my students debate roles as "administrators" and "English faculty," tasking them with … Continue reading How do we write at the intersection of race and gender?
In Your Lecture, Research Together
As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, my 8 a.m. class this semester has been a challenge but by now (two months into the semester) my students have grown accustomed to me throwing questions like "Is feminism a privilege?" at them at 8:10 a.m. They talk in their listening dyad activity for two minutes each, … Continue reading In Your Lecture, Research Together
“A remaking of the mind itself”: Margaret Fuller’s Pedagogy & Mine
Teaching Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century is instructive in its challenge. The text contains numerous references that take students to task with additional research to understand the import of its anecdotes. The text’s oscillation between essentialism and radical gender fluidity can also perplex the student who expects a linear argument one would find … Continue reading “A remaking of the mind itself”: Margaret Fuller’s Pedagogy & Mine
Teaching the Impossible Syllabus: “Women, Gender & U.S. Literature”
When I was assigned "Women, Gender, and U.S. Literature," a 5-week summer course that meets 4 days a week for 2 hours, I stared at my bookshelf ready to put 75% of its contents on the syllabus, then I went to Twitter and asked for suggestions, and then I went to colleagues for help who … Continue reading Teaching the Impossible Syllabus: “Women, Gender & U.S. Literature”
Hiking Like A Woman, Part II
Last year I wrote about several women who are tough as nails, hiking the Appalachian Trail through rain and pain (read Part I here). This year I'm blown away by how many women are on the trail, and how little sexism I've witnessed compared to last year's alpha male surplus. They're thru-hiking in every bubble and … Continue reading Hiking Like A Woman, Part II
