Presentation
Toni Morrison’s A Mercy as Pedagogy: Teaching Early American Women Writers
Society of Early Americanists Eleventh Biennial Conference
(2019)
Abstract
As educators, we often seek to introduce students to voices from the past that might be relatively new to them. In my upper-level literature course on early American women writers, designed for non-English majors, I attempt to do just that, but my efforts to “recover” these writers for my students are sometimes hampered not only by the usual challenges of archaic writing styles and unfamiliar life experiences, but also by the difficulty of authentically representing the world these women inhabited. Is there a way to help students experience early America as a coherent, engaging, complete world into which they then can situate the women whose voices they are encountering? Could historical fiction help create this colonial “world” for students? This paper uses student feedback to examine how Toni Morrison’s historical novel A Mercy helped my students engage with colonial women writers.
Keywords
- early America,
- women writers,
- historical fiction,
- A Mercy,
- Toni Morrison,
- pedgogy
Disciplines
Publication Date
March 2, 2019
Location
Eugene, OR
Citation Information
Lisa Smith. "Toni Morrison’s A Mercy as Pedagogy: Teaching Early American Women Writers" Society of Early Americanists Eleventh Biennial Conference (2019) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/lisa_smith2/15/