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Papers by Mary Tegan
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830, May 1, 2018
Eighteenth-century critics commonly used birth topoi to ridicule writing they believed to be unin... more Eighteenth-century critics commonly used birth topoi to ridicule writing they believed to be uninspired or imitative, but their attacks on the bad form and excesses of women’s novels were particularly pointed. Novels were not so much authored as begotten—through suspect feminized spaces like the circulating library and the automatic reproduction of formulaic fiction. Such judgments were felt keenly by women writers, as evidenced by Frances Burney’s anxiety about the fate of her second offspring, Cecilia, and her prefatory allegory of authorial corruption at the Temple of Vanity. Vanity, it was suggested, was not only the motivating force behind women novelists’ endeavors, it might also be fostered through the reading of sentimental fiction. This essay explores the transmission of affect between women readers and writers, reframing the creative and destabilizing powers of vanity to argue that copious nothings divert readers and writers’ attention from domestic cares, disrupting the p...
Essays in Romanticism: Volume 28, Issue 2
Walter Scott’s “The Highland Widow” proved to be a challenging text to teach online during the pa... more Walter Scott’s “The Highland Widow” proved to be a challenging text to teach online during the pandemic; put off by antiquated language, embedded narratives, and the temporal distance of the widow and her history, my students had little to offer in our discussion. In order to rouse their interest and restore “classroom affect,” I incorporated streaming video of two Alexander McQueen fashion shows with thematic resonance—Highland Rape (1995) and Widows of Culloden (2006). Like Scott, McQueen compels his audience to confront the violence and forced assimilation of Scotland’s past, but in a visually provocative and immediate fashion that captures the attention of easily distracted, languishing students. Together, the two artists offer a recursive model for engaging students in remote and difficult texts, encouraging instructors to prolong the intensity of the affective encounter and defer the moment of instructional resolution.
Eighteenth-Century Fiction
The Eighteenth Century, 2017
Studies in the Novel, 2010
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830, May 1, 2018
Eighteenth-century critics commonly used birth topoi to ridicule writing they believed to be unin... more Eighteenth-century critics commonly used birth topoi to ridicule writing they believed to be uninspired or imitative, but their attacks on the bad form and excesses of women’s novels were particularly pointed. Novels were not so much authored as begotten—through suspect feminized spaces like the circulating library and the automatic reproduction of formulaic fiction. Such judgments were felt keenly by women writers, as evidenced by Frances Burney’s anxiety about the fate of her second offspring, Cecilia, and her prefatory allegory of authorial corruption at the Temple of Vanity. Vanity, it was suggested, was not only the motivating force behind women novelists’ endeavors, it might also be fostered through the reading of sentimental fiction. This essay explores the transmission of affect between women readers and writers, reframing the creative and destabilizing powers of vanity to argue that copious nothings divert readers and writers’ attention from domestic cares, disrupting the p...
Essays in Romanticism: Volume 28, Issue 2
Walter Scott’s “The Highland Widow” proved to be a challenging text to teach online during the pa... more Walter Scott’s “The Highland Widow” proved to be a challenging text to teach online during the pandemic; put off by antiquated language, embedded narratives, and the temporal distance of the widow and her history, my students had little to offer in our discussion. In order to rouse their interest and restore “classroom affect,” I incorporated streaming video of two Alexander McQueen fashion shows with thematic resonance—Highland Rape (1995) and Widows of Culloden (2006). Like Scott, McQueen compels his audience to confront the violence and forced assimilation of Scotland’s past, but in a visually provocative and immediate fashion that captures the attention of easily distracted, languishing students. Together, the two artists offer a recursive model for engaging students in remote and difficult texts, encouraging instructors to prolong the intensity of the affective encounter and defer the moment of instructional resolution.
Eighteenth-Century Fiction
The Eighteenth Century, 2017
Studies in the Novel, 2010