Women’s Autobiographies, Diaries, and Letters
Instructor: Michele Lise Tarter
This course is an examination of women’s autobiographical literature from many different cultures and time periods. Drawing from a wide spectrum of primary and manuscript sources, we will study such representative works as 17th-century Puritan women’s Indian captivity narratives, 18th-century cross-dressed women’s Revolutionary War memoirs, 19th-century slave narratives, Victorian maidservants’ journals, women’s pioneer diaries of westward migration and expansion, and 20th-century women’s “fictional autobiographies.” The reading of these sources will be accompanied by rigorous research of secondary texts, incorporating the study of gender, history, and culture in relation to the primary works. Ultimately, we will explore the contemporary and rising field of autobiographical literary criticism, applying many theoretical perspectives to this ever-expanding corpus of women’s literature and life-writing across the ages.