Contextual Documents Take 2

So I was reviewing my blog for Thursday and checking stuff off my list when I realized my contextual documents weren't showing up in the blog. As a result, here it is again just in case. Enjoy!


Sculpture of Sampson in Sharon Town
http://www.honorrollofliberty.com/Communities/sharon.htm

In order to understand Herman Mann’s use of nature in The Female Review to sustain Deborah Sampson’s femininity, the reader needs to understand popular depictions of nature in the 18th century, eco-feminist criticism, and the place of women in the American Revolution


Nature in the 18th century:

Edmund Burke’s a Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful discusses what he believes are the distinctions between the concepts of the "sublime" and the "beautiful." Some of the topics cover utility, passion, individual emotion, and feminine/masculine binaries. While this is an English author, it provides an excellent context with which to understand views of nature in the 18th century.

Important points:
- The sublime and the beautiful
- Beautiful nature is feminized
- Sublime nature is masculine
- Beautiful- weak and dainty
- Importance of balance



Terry Gifford's text titled Pastoral gives an overview of what pastoral nature means. Gifford traces the use of the pastoral from early American literature to contemporary literature.

Important Points Include:
- Idealized nature
- Three types of pastoral
- Antipastoral versus pastoral
- Ecofeminism
- Ecology

Further Reading:

Branch, Micheal P. Reading the roots American nature writing before Walden. Athens: University of Georgia P, 2004.

Eco-feminist Criticism:

Gretchen Legler's article “Ecofeminist Literary Criticism” outlines the methodology of literary eco-feminist study. She discusses the major concepts and tools, such as "embodied" nature and how a written text conducts eco-feminist praxis. This essay provides a basis with which to understand eco-feminist literary theory that is reader friendly.

Important Points Include:
- Intersectionality
- Eco-feminist theoretical methodology
- Creating and “environmental ethic” (228)
- Colonialism
- Active literary nature
- Nature as Female
- Disruption of nature constructions
- Praxis

Chaia Heller's essay "For the Love of Nature: Ecology and the Cult of the Romantic." discusses feminine representations of nature "emerge out of a romantic tradition based on male, disembodied fantasy of ideal woman" (219). Heller discusses how the romanticizing or idealizing of nature perpetuates the exploitation of women and nature.

Important Points Include:
- The “cult of the romantic” (219)
- Romanticized nature
- Nature as victimized
- Nature as needing “male protection”
- Radical ecology

Deborah Slicer and Greta Gaard’s essay "Toward an Ecofeminist Standpoint Theory: Bodies as Grounds" uses the discussion of women having an innate relationship with nature to discuss the body. Slicer suggests that based on the simultaneous oppression of women and nature, the female body is a source of assault in the same way the physical land is assaulted. Slicer uses Judith Butler to support her discussion of the body.

Important Points Included:
- The body facing the same assault as the land
- Nature as other
- Feminized nature



By: Nina Perez

Further Reading:

Murphy, Patrick D. "Ground, Pivot, Motion: Ecofeminist Theory, Dialogics, and Literary Practice." Literature, nature, and other ecofeminist critiques. Albany: State University of New York P, 1995. 19-30.

Murphy, Patrick D., and Greta Gaard, eds. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy (Environment Human Condition). New York: University of Illinois P, 1998.

Gaard, Greta Claire. Ecofeminism Women, Animals, Nature (Ethics and Action). New York: Temple UP, 1993.

Women in the American Revolution:

The Following texts all provide insight into the place of women during the American Revolution. This includes the discussion of women entering the public sphere and being allowed more public roles. While women still did not have equal rights, events of the American Revolution paved the way for more possibilities.

Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty's daughters the revolutionary experience of American women, 1750-1800. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UP, 1996.

Opdycke, Sandra. The Routledge Historical Atlas of Women in America. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Purcell, Sarah J. Sealed with blood war, sacrifice, and memory in Revolutionary America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania P, 2002.

Eldridge, Larry D., ed. Women and Freedom: In Early America. New York: New York UP, 1997.

Ellet, E. F. Revolutionary women in the War for American Independence a one-volume revised edition of Elizabeth Ellet's 1848 landmark series. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1998

Logan, Lisa M. "Columbia's Daughter in Drag: or, Cross-Dressing, Collaboration, and Authorship in Early American Novels." Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies. Ed. Mary C. Carruth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama P, 2006. 240-52.


“Engraving of American soldier Deborah Sampson (1760 - 1827) in uniform, standing beside a cannon during the American Revolution, circa 1776. Kean Collection/Getty Images” - http://www.life.com/image/2686507

Further Reading about Sampson:

Weyler, Karen A. "An Actor in the Dram of Revolution: Deborah Sampson, Print, and Performance in the Creation of Celebrity." Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies. Ed. Mary C. Carruth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama P, 2006. 181-93.

Hiltner, Judith R. "She Bled in Secret: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann and The Female Review." Early American Literature 34 (1999): 190-220.