MSU scholar spotlights early modern women writers as key to future studies in book, upcoming campus presentation
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.Lara Dodds, professor and head of 51勛圖厙 State's Department of English, highlights the often-overlooked literary contributions of women in the early modern period in the new book Early Modern Womens Writing and the Future of Literary History.
Published in June by Oxford University Press, Dodds and coauthor Michelle Dowd, the Hudson Strode Professor of English in the University of Alabamas Department of English, challenge traditional ideas about authorship, canon and literary value. They examine how early womens writingoften dismissed as belated or out of step with critical trendsoffers fresh opportunities to rethink literary history and teaching. The authors contend this belatedness is not a flaw but a strength that can help shape the future of literary studies.
Dodds and Dowd will present a campus talk on the book Wednesday [Sept. 17] at 4 p.m. in Mitchell Memorial Librarys John Grisham Room. For more information on the event, contact MSU Department of English Associate Professor Eric Vivier at edv34@msstate.edu.
Michelle and I frequently had conversations about how the research in our subfield, early modern womens writing, was not recognized or integrated into literary studies as a whole, Dodds said. We were inspired to write this book because we thought research based on early women writerssuch as Margaret Cavendish, Lucy Hutchinson and Elizabeth Carycould help all literature scholars address the big questions in the field.
Dodds earned her bachelors degree in English from DePauw University and both her masters degree and Ph.D. in English, with a focus on 17th-century literature, from Brown University. Her teaching interests include John Milton, early modern British literature, early modern womens writing and research methods.
She is also the author of The Literary Invention of Margaret Cavendish (Duquesne University Press, 2013) and Miltons Other Worlds, part of a series in Uncircumscribed Minds: Reading Milton Deeply (Susquehanna University Press, 2007). Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals including Milton Studies, Early Modern Studies Journal, Restoration, English Literary Renaissance and The John Donne Journal.
For more information about MSUs College of Arts and Sciences and Department of English, visit and .
51勛圖厙 is taking care of what matters. Learn more at .