New This Month in Literature - July 2024
This July read up on women and gender in nineteenth century literature!
A Fanny Fern Reader: Selections by a Pioneering Nineteenth-Century Woman Journalist, by Fanny Fern and edited and with an introduction by Emily E. VanDette, features a selection of Fern's columns, mostly from her years as a weekly columnist for the New York Ledger, along with an introduction that shares the remarkable story of Fern's perseverance and success as a woman in a male-dominated profession.
"This collection would fill an important scholarly void by providing an organized collection of Fanny Fern's writings, divided helpfully into topical categories. Scholars and readers no longer will need to search through the disparate sources to find Fern's writings about various subjects. It could be used in American literature course, women's literature course, history courses, women's history courses, journalism courses, and American Studies courses." — Debra Brenegan, author of Shame the Devil: A Novel
"Offers academics in the fields of American periodicals and journalism history, as well as lay readers, a selection of writings from a compelling nineteenth-century writer who was perhaps the best-known woman columnist of her era. It would work well in undergraduate courses in journalism, American periodicals, and women’s literature." — Cynthia Patterson, Associate Professor of English, University of South Florida
"VanDette's A Fanny Fern Reader offers us a beautifully comprehensive volume of essays from Fanny Fern, who was nineteenth-century America's ruling titan of wit among newspaper columnists, and the highest paid of all of them … And this stunning volume of essays does her justice, providing a modern context for reading the many themes across her oeuvre … This book could be used in history courses, women's and gender studies courses, children's literature, journalism, early American literature, 19C American literature, [and] women writers…" — Christina Katopodis, CUNY Humanities Alliance, Graduate Center, CUNY
New in the Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century series is Sounding Bodies: Acoustical Science and Musical Erotics in Victorian Literature, by Shannon Draucker, showing how nineteenth-century discoveries in acoustical science shaped Victorian literary representations of gender, sexuality, and intimacy.
"Sounding Bodies departs from the longstanding critical tradition of interpreting the erotics of music and musicianship in Victorian literature metaphorically. Instead, this book takes them literally, making a case for the sociopolitical importance of centralizing the embodied experiences of musical playing and listening in the world of contemporary classical music. I was impressed from start to finish by the author’s mastery of Victorian literature, the history of acoustical science, and contemporary musicology, especially the insights of queer and feminist musicology." — Dustin Friedman, author of Before Queer Theory: Victorian Aestheticism and the Self
"Eminently readable, Sounding Bodies shakes up the entrenched notion that the Victorians were stuffy and afraid of bodies. Reveling in the pleasures and reparative nature of music, while also reflecting on music's dark side, the book is for anyone interested in expansive explorations of eroticism." — Duc Dau, author of Sex, Celibacy, and Deviance: The Victorians and the Song of Songs
Happy reading and come back and see what's new next month!
