Beth Tobin - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Beth Tobin

Routledge eBooks, Mar 3, 2016

The Eighteenth Century, Mar 1, 2021

University of Georgia Press eBooks, 1994

At once feminist and historical, the essays in "History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Lite... more At once feminist and historical, the essays in "History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Literature" draw on culture, history and gender as categories of analysis to explore British literature. From a variety of critical angles, the contributors to this volume contend that a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances and conditions of women's and men's lives is vital to the task of literary criticism. The texts under consideration range from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries, from popular and subliterary genres, such as conduct books and agricultural manuals, to works by such canonical writers as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen. Providing models that will encourage feminists to turn to history and culture in their analyses of literary texts, these essays explore the culture and historical specificity of ideas about women and men, their roles, and their "nature" as manifested in literature. Among the topics discussed, are the ways in which texts create gendered subjectivities and promote the production of masculine and feminine spheres of activity; the use of more traditional historical methods aimed at rediscovering women's lived experience; the economic and political forces that shape women's lives; the legal foundations of women's powerlessness; the representation of the body; and violations of gender categories. A central tenet of feminist criticism in recent years has been the conviction that gender must be understood, not just in biological terms, but also in its fuller sense as a social and cultural construct. This assumption leads to the awareness that the conditions shaping women's experience - and the construction of gender - are constantly shifting. It is this challenge that the essays in "History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Literature" explore. "We must recognize historical difference," writes Beth Fowkes Tobin, "because with this understanding will come the recognition that as women, as writers, and as readers, we are constituted by our society, and upon this recognition depends our liberation."

Early American Literature, 2015

art historians, and those working on the Black Atlantic. However, although historians are an unde... more art historians, and those working on the Black Atlantic. However, although historians are an underrepresented bunch among the contributors, cultural historians as well as historians of the Atlantic world, African-American history, and the African diaspora also will find value in the work. The authors have done much to erase the erasure that has characterized slave portraiture in the Atlantic world for so long.

Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, 2016

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 1995

... Beth Fowkes Tobin teaches eighteenth-century British literature, art, and cul-ture at the Uni... more ... Beth Fowkes Tobin teaches eighteenth-century British literature, art, and cul-ture at the University of Hawai'i at MBnoa. 87 ... West chose to paint them wearing not what these men would have worn in the late seventeenth century-satin waistcoats, silk stockings, bro-caded jackets ...

Routledge eBooks, Mar 3, 2016

The Eighteenth Century, Mar 1, 2021

University of Georgia Press eBooks, 1994

At once feminist and historical, the essays in "History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Lite... more At once feminist and historical, the essays in "History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Literature" draw on culture, history and gender as categories of analysis to explore British literature. From a variety of critical angles, the contributors to this volume contend that a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances and conditions of women's and men's lives is vital to the task of literary criticism. The texts under consideration range from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries, from popular and subliterary genres, such as conduct books and agricultural manuals, to works by such canonical writers as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen. Providing models that will encourage feminists to turn to history and culture in their analyses of literary texts, these essays explore the culture and historical specificity of ideas about women and men, their roles, and their "nature" as manifested in literature. Among the topics discussed, are the ways in which texts create gendered subjectivities and promote the production of masculine and feminine spheres of activity; the use of more traditional historical methods aimed at rediscovering women's lived experience; the economic and political forces that shape women's lives; the legal foundations of women's powerlessness; the representation of the body; and violations of gender categories. A central tenet of feminist criticism in recent years has been the conviction that gender must be understood, not just in biological terms, but also in its fuller sense as a social and cultural construct. This assumption leads to the awareness that the conditions shaping women's experience - and the construction of gender - are constantly shifting. It is this challenge that the essays in "History, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century Literature" explore. "We must recognize historical difference," writes Beth Fowkes Tobin, "because with this understanding will come the recognition that as women, as writers, and as readers, we are constituted by our society, and upon this recognition depends our liberation."

Early American Literature, 2015

art historians, and those working on the Black Atlantic. However, although historians are an unde... more art historians, and those working on the Black Atlantic. However, although historians are an underrepresented bunch among the contributors, cultural historians as well as historians of the Atlantic world, African-American history, and the African diaspora also will find value in the work. The authors have done much to erase the erasure that has characterized slave portraiture in the Atlantic world for so long.

Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, 2016

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 1995

... Beth Fowkes Tobin teaches eighteenth-century British literature, art, and cul-ture at the Uni... more ... Beth Fowkes Tobin teaches eighteenth-century British literature, art, and cul-ture at the University of Hawai'i at MBnoa. 87 ... West chose to paint them wearing not what these men would have worn in the late seventeenth century-satin waistcoats, silk stockings, bro-caded jackets ...