Dr. Jean Lutes and Dr. Travis Foster Discuss Gender, American Literature and White Supremacy

 Please join Villanova English faculty Dr. Jean Lutes and Dr. Travis Foster on Tuesday, March 16 for "We Have Been Here All Along: Gender, American Literature, and White Supremacy," an event to celebrate the publication of a new collection of essays on Gender in American Literature and Culture. The volume, co-edited by Dr. Lutes, will be published this month by Cambridge University Press and features essays by Dr. Lutes and Dr. Foster.

The book introduces readers to key developments in gender studies and American literary criticism. It offers nuanced readings of literary conventions and genres from early American writings to the present and moves beyond inflexible categories of masculinity and femininity that have reinforced misleading assumptions about public and private spaces, domesticity, individualism, and community. The book also demonstrates how rigid inscriptions of gender have perpetuated a legacy of violence and exclusion in the United States. Responding to a sense of 21st century cultural and political crisis, it illuminates the literary histories and cultural imaginaries that have set the stage for urgent contemporary debates.

Also speaking at the event will be Dr. Lutes's co-editor, Dr. Jennifer Travis, professor and chair of English at St. John's University, as well as two contributors to the volume: Dr. Brigitte Fielder, associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dr. Seulghee Lee, assistant professor of African American and English literature at the University of South Caroline.

The event will be held on Zoom, starting at 7.30pm. You can register here.