White Whales and Scribbling Women: Why We Read What We Read from Nineteenth-Century American Literature

The nineteenth century was a time of tremendous growth in American writing. Thanks both to increased literacy and to improved transportation of goods that made reading material cheaper, books and magazines containing novels, short stories, poems, and essays proliferated. The first “best sellers” appeared. Books were read, shared, and discussed; praised and criticized in the press; and occasionally preached against from pulpits. But today, most of us are exposed to only a small percentage of those works—and that not a very representative sample. In this talk, Lenoir-Rhyne University English professor Julie Voss will describe the nineteenth-century American literary landscape, explain the process through which the American literary “canon” was shaped, and share some of the recovery work of recent decades that is bringing to light a larger vision of the time period. 

This program is in partnership with Hickory Community Theatre and their production of The Book of Will which runs February 28 – March 15.