Call for Essays: “Transatlantic Eighteenth-Century Women Travelers”
Editor: Misty Krueger, Ph.D.
I seek essay proposals for a collection in development entitled Transatlantic Eighteenth-Century Women Travelers. This collection will examine long eighteenth-century (approximately 1650-1830) accounts written by or about British, American, European, African, and/or Caribbean women who have traveled the Atlantic. While scholars have examined at length the travels of men who have crossed the Atlantic for religious, economic, and political reasons, few address in detail those of their female counterparts in the Atlantic World. This book aims to contribute to the fields of transatlantic and oceanic studies by focusing particularly on an aspect of both long eighteenth-century travel writing and transatlanticism that needs more scholarly attention: transatlantic women’s experiences. Inspired by formative studies in eighteenth-century transatlanticism by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning, which devote chapters to women writers, the proposed collection intends to provide insight into the different experiences women face, as compared to men, as they travel the seas, as well as when and where they land. Such experiences are the direct result of women’s marital statuses, class, race, age, genders, and/or sexualities. While the collection may include male writers’ accounts of transatlantic women travelers, the primary goal of this collection is to show how women portray transatlantic travel through either first-hand accounts, or through fictional narratives about transatlantic women travelers. Ultimately, the collection aims to include scholarship about 1) women writers and artists engaging in the travails of a transatlantic crossing, and 2) women depicting themselves or other women crossing the Atlantic, as well as the aftermath of these travels.
Topics for essays may address, but are not limited to, the following:
- Stories or histories written by or about transatlantic women travelers of any nationality
- Autobiographical or biographical accounts of transatlantic women travelers of any nationality
- Female Robinsonades or castaway narratives
- Captivity narratives
- Seduction narratives
- Pirate narratives
- Genres besides prose, including poetry, drama, and art
- Images of transatlantic women’s bodies, sexualities, and/or social roles
Proposals of approximately 500 words and a brief CV should be sent to Misty Krueger at misty.krueger@maine.edu by February 28, 2017. Contributors will be notified in March if their proposals have been accepted. Completed essays of 6,000-8,000 words will be due by August 28, 2017. A university press has already expressed interest in the collection, and the submitted volume will undergo the peer-review process.