{"id":3264,"date":"2022-03-06T16:40:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T21:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=3264"},"modified":"2022-03-06T16:40:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T21:40:34","slug":"little-women-through-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2022\/03\/06\/little-women-through-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Women through History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Little Women at 150<\/em>, a new collection of scholarly essays about Louisa May Alcott\u2019s classic novel, has an official publication date of March 8, 2022.\u00a0 It is fitting that the University Press of Mississippi is releasing this collection during Women\u2019s History Month, for Little Women <\/em>has had a tremendous impact on the history of women ever since the first part of the novel came out in October 1868.\u00a0 For more information about Little Women at 150<\/em>, please click on the following link:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.upress.state.ms.us\/Books\/L\/Little-Women-at-150<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Shealy, the editor of Little Women at 150<\/em>, is my friend and long-time colleague in the English Department at UNC Charlotte.\u00a0 Over the years, he has edited numerous books related to Alcott, including The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott, The Journals of Louisa May Alcott<\/em>, Alcott in Her Own Time,<\/em> and Little Women: An Annotated Edition<\/em>.\u00a0 During his long career, he has become well known among the other leading Alcott scholars. In editing Little Women at 150<\/em>, he has drawn on his many connections in the field, and the result is a collection of eight original essays by top Alcott scholars. As the reviewer for Publishers Weekly <\/em>states, \u201cthe contributors do a great job of considering the classic novel in original, surprising lights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contributors to Little Women at 150<\/em> provide insights into why Little Women<\/em> has had such a lasting impact on the history of American literature.  These scholars look at Alcott\u2019s novel from different perspectives, but they all discuss the relationship between Alcott\u2019s novel and the larger world.  A number of the contributors point out that Little Women<\/em> reflects 19th<\/sup>-century values and attitudes.  However, as is discussed in several of the essays, Alcott\u2019s novel also raises questions about societal values and attitudes, especially as they relate to gender roles.  In the words of Roberta Seelinger Trites, one of the contributors to the collection, Alcott \u201ccreates a philosophical space in which her female characters can articulate ideas about language, nature, and self\u2014and without fear of censure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In thinking about Little Women at 150<\/em> as it relates to Women\u2019s History Month, I am in agreement with the contributors that Alcott\u2019s Little Women <\/em>should be viewed as one of the canonical texts in the history of American literature and that Alcott should be included among the pantheon of major American authors from the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 However, the impact of Little Women <\/em>on women\u2019s history is not limited to the 19th<\/sup> century. I assigned Little Women<\/em> as required reading in my graduate children\u2019s literature seminar this semester, and it sparked a lively debate about the book\u2019s portrayal of gender roles during our class discussion.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear to me that Little Women<\/em> still speaks to contemporary readers.\u00a0 In his introduction to Little Women at 150<\/em>, Daniel writes that the collection \u201clooks backward and forward in time, not only to the influence of the novel upon readers and writers but also to the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I commend Daniel for editing this thoughtful collection of essays and for helping us better appreciate Alcott\u2019s place in history.  I am fortunate that one of the world\u2019s leading Alcott scholars is just down the hall from my office, and Storied Charlotte is fortunate that Daniel has pursued his career as a scholar and teacher at UNC Charlotte. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little Women at 150, a new collection of scholarly essays about Louisa May Alcott\u2019s classic novel, has an official publication date of March 8, 2022.\u00a0 It is fitting that the University Press of Mississippi is releasing this collection during Women\u2019s History Month, for Little Women has had a tremendous impact on the history of women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3266,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264\/revisions\/3266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}