English 791WP - S-AmericanWomenWriters/Protest

What attributes make a woman's protest distinct from other types of activism? How has American women's protest literature fared as part of the American literary canon and historical memory? This reading seminar focuses on American women writers' non-fictional and fictional works as they coincide with broader biographical and cultural histories. We will especially address topics surrounding 19th-century African American women writers' expansion of the American literary canon, often pairing primary works with criticism and theoretical readings. At other times we will read the political literature of White and male writers that materialize areas of difference surrounding notions of feminism and the legal status of underrepresented groups. Readings include early American Black churchwomen's advocacy pamphlets, Harriet Wilson's novelized slave narrative Our Nig (1859), William Wells Brown's slave narrative My Southern Home (1880), and chapters from Saidiya Hartman's Scenes of Subjection. In discussion, we will prioritize themes intersecting with race and processes of identity formation with topics on womanhood: enslavement, moral suasion, subjectivity, protest, and occupational feminism.

Open to Graduate students only.