I have been trying for some time to articulate what I see as an important missing link to discussions about how to improve women's status in the literary world--namely, improving their profile in our understanding of the literary past. If students come out of college with little exposure to women writers, as they continue to do in large numbers, then it is no wonder they have a…
Perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked, but I was when I read the Washington Post’s review of Karen Abbott’s new book, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, about four women who participated in the Civil War. Jonathan Yardley compares what he sees as the book’s troubling passages to writing “borrowed from the pages of a women’s magazine.” Apparently, women’s magazines are full of writing that he…
It hasn't been easy to keep Woolson in my life since I returned to teaching this fall. I've taught her stories "Miss Grief" and "Jeannette" in my American Literature Survey class. But presenting a paper at the South Central Modern Language Association conference here in New Orleans last week gave me the opportunity (or should I say made me make the time) to…
After a year and half off from teaching to write, I am now back in the classroom and find myself morphing from my writer self to that other professional identity: English Professor. I worked so hard for so many years to be a good teacher and successful professor, to get the tenure-track job, to get tenure, to get promotion, to get the scholarly…