#MeToo and Literary Studies

Mary K. Holland is Professor of English at The State University of New York at New Paltz, USA. She is the author of The Moral Worlds of Contemporary Realism (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Succeeding Postmodernism (Bloomsbury, 2013), and co-editor, with Stephen J. Burn, of Approaches to Teaching David Foster Wallace (2019). Heather Hewett is Associate Professor and Chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and an affiliate of the English Department at The State University of New York at New Paltz, USA. Her work on feminism, gender, and contemporary literature has been published in scholarly journals and edited collections as well as mainstream and literary publications.

Instructive and inspirational ... this book is a powerful call to action to scholars in other fields to weave discussions of sexual violence into their syllabuses as well as reckon with the culture of silence that promotes sexual harassment and violence within our own institutions.

• Introduction: Literary Studies as Literary Activism Heather Hewett and Mary K. Holland, State University of New York, New Paltz, USAPart 1: Critical Practices 1. “Dismissed, trivialized, misread”: Re-Examining the Reception of Women’s Literature through the #MeToo Movement Janet Badia, Purdue University, USA 2. Reading Survivor Narratives: Literary Criticism as Feminist Solidarity Tanya Serisier, Birbeck College, University of London, UK 3. Evoking the Specter of White Feminism in the #MeToo Movement: Publishing Memoirs and the Cultural Memory of American Feminism Amanda Spallaci, University of Alberta, Canada 4. Pricing Black Girl Pain: The Cost of Black Girlhood in Street LitJacinta R. Saffold, University of New Orleans, USA5. From #MMIW to #NotInvisible: Indigenous Women in the #MeToo Era Kasey Jones-Matrona, University of Oklahoma, USA 6. Credibility and Doubt in the Age of #MeToo Namrata Mitra and Katherine Connor, Iona College, USA 7.Quite Possibly the Last Essay I Need to Write about David Foster Wallace Mary K. Holland, State University of New York, New Paltz, USA Part 2: Re-readings 8. Philomela's Tapestry and #MeToo: Reading Ovid in an Indian Feminist Classroom Aditi Joshi, Anushka Srivastava, Katyayani, Mahwash Akhter, Prasanta Bani Ekka, Shivangi Tiwary, Shweta, and Zahanat, Miranda House, University of Delhi, India 9. “Be wary of the delusions of fancy!”: Silencing and Rape Culture in Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette Hannah Herndon, Tufts University, USA 10. “Fearful of being pursued, yet determined to persevere”: Northanger Abbey and the #MeToo Movement Douglas Murray, Belmont University, USA 11. The Limits of #MeToo in India: Rereading Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India and Deepa Mehta’s Earth Nidhi Shrivastava, University of Western Ontario, Canada12. Intimate Violence and Sexual Assault in Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut: Carving Spaces of Feminist Liberation in Post-Apartheid South African LiteratureNafeesa T. Nichols, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway13.The Other Men of #MeToo: Male Rape in Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, Sapphire’s The Kid, and Amber Tamblyn’s Any Man Robin E. Field, King’s College, Pennsylvania, USA 14. Reading Junot Díaz after Me Too and #MeToo Ann Marie Alfonso Short, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, USA Part 3: PedagogyPractices and Methods15. Beyond Safe Spaces: Working Towards Access and Accountability Using Trauma-Informed PedagogyMaureen McDonnell, Eastern Connecticut State University, USA16. Trigger Warnings: An Ethics for Tutoring #MeToo Content and Rape Narratives in Writing Centers Beth Walker, University of Tennessee at Martin, USA17. From Sympathy to Detoxification: Pedagogical Approaches for Dismantling Rape CultureJeremy Posadas, Austin College, USA18. Theorizing “Toxic” Masculinity across Cultures and Nations: The Case of Achebe’s Things Fall ApartHeather Hewett, State University of New York, New Paltz, USA19. “I said nothing”: Teaching Corregidora and Black Women’s Relationship to Consent Carlyn Ferrari, Seattle University, USA 20. “Teach as if you aren’t afraid of getting fired”: A Queer Survivor’s Use of Restorative Justice Circles to Embrace Vulnerability in the ClassroomSarah Goldbort, University at Buffalo, USA21. Praxis of Empowerment: Latina Decolonial Feminist Pedagogy and Jaquira Díaz’s Ordinary Girls Roberta Hurtado, State University of New York, Oswego, USAClassroom Contexts22. Teaching the #MeToo Memoir: Creating Empathy in the First-Year College ClassroomElif S. Armbruster, Suffolk University, USA23. Teaching Courtly Love in the Medieval Classroom: Desire, Consent, and the #MeToo MovementSara V. Torres, University of Virginia, USA, and Rebecca F. McNamara, Westmont College, USA24. Centering Black Women in the Classroom: Teaching Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl after #MeTooLinda Chavers, Harvard University, USA 25. Lessons in Credibility and Complicity in Two Modern DramasAmy B. Hagenrater-Gooding, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, USA26. An Impulse Toward Agency: Teaching Scenes of Sexual Violence in Afro-Latina/o/x LiteratureEthan Madarieta, Syracuse University, USA27. New Approaches to Short Fiction and Nonfiction in the Classroom: Challenging Violence from Queer and Straight Perspectives Zoë Brigley Thompson, The Ohio State University, USA28. Recruiting Warriors: Using Literature in College Classrooms to Fight and Win “The Longest War”Candice Pipes, United States Air Force, USANotes on ContributorsIndex