Overview
- Provides an important examination on the history of the study of Anglo-Saxon and early medieval literature
- Connects historical issues of inclusion in American academia to contemporary discussions of race, class, and gender on college campuses today
- Expands knowledge of female scholars’ role in nineteenth-century medievalism
Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages (TNMA)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
About this book
This study, part of growing interest in the study of nineteenth-century medievalism and Anglo-Saxonism, closely examines the intersections of race, class, and gender in the teaching of Anglo-Saxon in the American women’s colleges before World War I, interrogating the ways that the positioning of Anglo-Saxon as the historical core of the collegiate English curriculum also silently perpetuated mythologies about Manifest Destiny, male superiority, and the primacy of northern European ancestry in United States culture at large. Analysis of college curricula and biographies of female professors demonstrates the ways that women used Anglo-Saxon as a means to professional opportunity and political expression, especially in the suffrage movement, even as that legitimacy and respectability was freighted with largely unarticulated assumptions of racist and sexist privilege. The study concludes by connecting this historical analysis with current charged discussions about the intersections ofrace, class, and gender on college campuses and throughout US culture.
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
- public medievalists
- racism nineteenth-century America
- suffrage nineteenth-century America
- nineteenth-century women's college
- old English
- Anglo-Saxon
- Angelo-Saxonists
- medievalism
- English department programs women's colleges
- women's educational history
- academic issues of curriculum
- racism in academia
- diversity in academia
- inclusion in academia
- Old English Poetry
- racism in medieval studies
- Curriculum of 19th Century Women's Colleges
- The Suffragette
- 19th Century American pedagogy
- manifest destiny
Table of contents (4 chapters)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Mary Dockray-Miller is Professor of English at Lesley University, where she teaches undergraduate classes in literary history, the history of the English language, and medieval studies. She is the author of The Books and the Life of Judith of Flanders (2015) and the editor of the Wilton Chronicle (2009).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Public Medievalists, Racism, and Suffrage in the American Women’s College
Authors: Mary Dockray-Miller
Series Title: The New Middle Ages
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69706-2
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-69705-5Published: 23 November 2017
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-69706-2Published: 13 November 2017
Series ISSN: 2945-5936
Series E-ISSN: 2945-5944
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 153
Number of Illustrations: 4 b/w illustrations, 10 illustrations in colour
Topics: Medieval Literature, Nineteenth-Century Literature, History of Education