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Author Biography

Emily J. Dowd-Arrow is an Associate Professor of English at Bainbridge State College who studies and writes on the works of eighteenth-century women, including Eliza Haywood, and especially The Female Spectator. Her scholarly interests include the history of women, sexuality, and the interplay of rhetoric and power in women's writing. Her teaching, as both generalist and specialist, focuses on the historical evolution of ideas, intertextuality, and the voices of historically oppressed individuals. She is also a professor of composition and active in the field of Rhet/Comp.

Sarah Creel is a Lecturer in English at Kennesaw State University. Her research interests include Eliza Haywood and other early eighteenth-century women writers, the history of authorship and the book, and feminist approaches to eighteenth-century authors. She has published on Eliza Haywood's representation in frontispieces and printer's ornaments, and has essays forthcoming in Literature Compass and the MLA's Approaches to Teaching series featuring Haywood. As a teacher, Sarah focuses on non-canonical authors, marginalized peoples, and the intersections of history and contemporary culture.

Abstract

“‘I Know You Want It’: Teaching the Blurred Lines of Eighteenth-Century Rape Culture” is a collaborative pedagogical article that addresses the problem of so-called “post-feminism” in the contemporary college classroom by way of a comparative approach to eighteenth-century literature. Specifically, we contextualize and compare the early and late work of Eliza Haywood with current cultural debates and events in order to demonstrate not only the relevance of Haywood and eighteenth-century writers like her, but the importance of continuing the feminist conversation. The article provides texts, readings, and discussion points for consideration, as well as links to relevant contemporary issues and events.

Keywords

eliza haywood, rape culture, blurred lines, post-feminist, pedagogy, eighteenth-century, women's studies, women's writing, masculinity, femininity, sexuality, sexual double standard, literature pedagogy, teaching the eighteenth century

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