Writing a Feminist’s Life: The Legacy of Carolyn G. Heilbrun
As I now see it, my memoir is based on growing up in the South. First of all, what that might do to you. But secondly – and way under that – what it might, in the long run, do for you. What kind of feminist can an inbred Southerner be, wherever she ends up … Read more
In Writing a Woman’s Life, Carolyn Heilbrun cites Nancy K. Miller to assert that “women’s lives, like women’s writing ‘have a particularly vulnerable relation to the culture’s central notion of plausibility.’” This is certainly more than true for feminists’ lives especially at a moment when the “f” word can only be uttered in a whisper. Heilbrun’s … Read more
In May of 1992, Carolyn Heilbrun left Columbia University in protest after teaching there for 32 years. As Joan Ferrante notes, Carolyn had vowed not to return to the Columbia campus, and the University did nothing to honor her “retirement.” On October 30th of that year, her friends, colleagues and students gathered to honor her remarkable … Read more
All the years I knew Carolyn Heilbrun, beginning in graduate school in 1984, I never heard her utter a single conventional sentiment. Even her more conservative views were unconventional, as though she had formulated them begrudgingly for pragmatic rather than prescriptive reasons. This meant, of course, that she was constantly embroiled in debates and controversies … Read more
I arrived at Columbia exactly 30 years ago today – not today, no, no, no, January, 30 years ago in January. I had come from four years at my first appointment, at Princeton, where I was recruited as part of affirmative action, which was just kicking in, of course, for higher education at that time. … Read more
I want to welcome you and thank you for coming and I also want to thank the sponsors and the arrangers of the event. It is a good occasion and I am now going to spoil it, as the old boys would complain. But I feel bound to honor Carol’s memory by reminding you why … Read more
I am very happy to add my welcome to all of you who have come for Writing a Feminist Life: Academics and Their Memoirs, a conference in honor of Carolyn Heilbrun. I’m going to say a bit about the subject of the conference and also a bit about the way we have organized the day. Those … Read more
“We are interested in how you became a feminist scholar and how your feminism affects the way you write about and teach literature.” That question came to me at the end of the 1980s in a letter from Gayle Greene and Coppélia Kahn, who were planning to co-edit an anthology about feminist literary scholarship. The … Read more
In February 2005, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWAG) at Columbia University organized a one-day symposium, “Writing a Feminist’s Life: Academics and their Memoirs.” The event was dedicated to the memory of Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, who taught at Columbia in the English Department for more than … Read more
Issue 4.2 of The Scholar & Feminist Online, “Writing a Feminist’s Life: The Legacy of Carolyn G. Heilbrun,” takes as its point of departure the February 2005 conference, “Writing a Feminist’s Life: Academics and Their Memoirs,” which was sponsored by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University and organized by Lila Abu-Lughod, … Read more
