Teaching Modernist Women’s Writing in English

Now available from MLA Publications!

Visit the website for the volume here

31372w2HHVL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_“The creativity shown here is staggering at times. I am already planning to use some of these innovative approaches to teaching modernism in my own classroom.”

—Lara Vetter, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

As authors and publishers, individuals and collectives, women significantly shaped the modernist movement. While figures such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein have received acclaim, authors from marginalized communities and those who wrote for mass, middlebrow audiences also created experimental and groundbreaking work. The essays in this volume explore formal aspects and thematic concerns of modernism while also challenging rigid notions of what constitutes literary value as well as the idea of a canon with fixed boundaries.

The essays contextualize modernist women’s writing in the material and political concerns of the early twentieth century and in life on the home front during wartime. They consider the original print contexts of the works and propose fresh digital approaches for courses ranging from high school through graduate school. Suggested assignments provide opportunities for students to write creatively and critically, recover forgotten literary works, and engage with their communities.