Topic: Early American Women Writers
Professor: Michele Tarter
Meetings: Wednesday 8:00am-10:50am
Course Description:
There were so many fascinating (and often unknown) women who lived and wrote in early America. With a particular focus on the public and private elocution of women living between 1630 and 1800, our theory-intensive seminar will explore a rich panoply of primary texts recorded by women—-documents penned hundreds of years ago that still speak to us today: diaries and letters, commonplace books, Indian captivity narratives, prophetic poetry, spiritual autobiographies, travel logs, midwifery journals, memoirs of domestic violence, and bestselling Revolutionary fiction. Ultimately, we will address the historical, literary, and cultural influences that shaped women’s lives at this time and then discern the ways that women addressed and even subverted such influences through the power of the written word.