Writing a Feminist’s Life: The Legacy of Carolyn G. Heilbrun
IN THIS ISSUE Introductionby Nancy K. Miller and Victoria Rosner About this Issueby David Hopson and Janet Jakobsen Recommended Reading Online Resources PART 1Carolyn at Columbia Opening Remarks for the Carolyn Heilbrun Conferenceby Jean Howard Carol and Columbiaby Joan Ferrante The Power and Joy of Being “Difficult”by Ann Douglas The Life of the Authorby Margaret Vandenburg Out … Read more
Carolyn Heilbrun “Carolyn Gold Heilbrun”, obituary by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar from The Guardian. Carolyn G. Heilbrun Papers, 1846-1979, Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College. “A Death of One’s Own”, article by Vanessa Grigoriadis from New York News & Features. Biography of Carolyn Heilbrun from the Wellesley College website. “Remembering Carolyn Heilbrun: Feminist Scholarship and Suicide”, article … Read more
Compiled by Annie Cranstoun Books by Carolyn G. Heilbrun: When Men Were the Only Models We Had: My Teachers Barzun, Fadiman, Trilling. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Women’s Lives: The View from the Threshold. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. The Last Gift of Time: Life beyond Sixty. New York: Dial, 1997. The Education … Read more
Ten years ago, I was trying to decide how to replot my life after Columbia decided that it would not be a part of my future. I had decided to write the second dissertation that would qualify me to be a professor of American Studies in Germany, but hadn’t yet settled on a subject for … Read more
I have a salt-loving tongue, not a sweet tooth, so the mass of papers I had collected from my printer tray and stuffed into an oversized envelope tempted less like a sack of candy or cookies, more like a packet of tasty chips or crackers. Nancy K. Miller and Victoria Rosner had just emailed me … Read more
The following comments were recorded during the question and answer sessions at “Writing a Feminist’s Life: Academics and Their Memoirs,” a conference in honor of Carolyn G. Heilbrun, held on February 11, 2005 at Columbia University. Deborah McDowell (Comments 1) The reluctance to call this project a memoir has to do with the kind of … Read more
What I will do is read a little from the memoir and then offer some reflections on writing memoirs. I read first of all, from the very beginning of the book: (The following excerpts are from A Border Passage: Cairo to America – A Woman’s Journey by Leila Ahmed. Copyright © 1999 Leila Ahmed. Used by permission … Read more
Some years ago, Carl Friedman was looking for Frances Bartkowski and me at a bar called Polly’s in Middletown, Connecticut. The bartender had called out, Carl reported, “Did anyone see two girls alone?” Two girls alone. I have been thinking about this – when and indeed how are women not single, as I take hesitant … Read more
This is the first time in a long career that I’ve found myself writing and radically rewriting, then yet rewriting a talk for a conference. The reason, obviously, is that I am not comfortable with the conference topic; I am the wrong speaker to invite for this particular subject, “Academics and Their Memoirs,” because up … Read more
With the publication of the book Surviving the Silence: Black Women’s Stories of Rape, my personal life was understandably changed. But also dramatically altered was my academic/professional life. Surviving the Silence and its being in the world has reshaped my pedagogy. The writing of memoir and its dissemination has shifted my thinking about “theory.” There was always tension … Read more
