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Opening Up Space: A Lovely Technofeminist Opportunity

Themes

Each editorial group identified themes within their own texts that were significant to the work they were recovering and connected that work to other selections in the anthology. These themes have been organized as "tags", creating an alternate way for readers to navigate the selections. You can read a short description of how the theme connects to our feminist recovery effort and click the hyperlink to go more in-depth; or, click through the guided path of themes with the blue buttons at the bottom of the page.

Feminism

Feminism! A reason to be here! Our discussion framed with this tag will consider historical issues surrounding feminism, including the networks of female friendships involved with our selections and the theme of female autonomy in our author's lives and texts.

Erasure

This theme considers more closely texts or writers who are not made visible to the author or work. It also considers, more generally, people who are not made visible, or are even repressed, in recovery work or through these texts themselves.

Social Class

Social class is an important dimension of the intersectional experiences of our authors, contextualizing their work and its reception. Classism and economic privilege are discussed, and middle class identity.

Intersectionality

The representation of identity is multi-dimensional. We drew on Marsha Houston's work and her idea of "pop-bead metaphysics" to represent our understanding of intersectional feminism and sought to explore identity and representation intersectionally throughout.

Education

Broadly, this tag relates the theme of education within selections and commentary on the educational attainments of their authors. The privilege of education for these writers is considered.

Defying Social Norms

'Unconventional lifestyle' may be fitting for some of these authors, who represented counter ideas or presence to the dominant culture.

Cultural Consideration

The "contact zone" (Pratt) is a contested area where cultural values, actions, or beliefs meet. This tag considers possible double-consciousness of authors, as part of two different cultures.

Politics

Political position is always rhetorical. Activist work and the use of writing for political means describes some of the recovery included, with a reflection on contemporary political debates raised in some of these entries.

Gender / Identity

Identity and gender are fluid, and might or might not make an impact on these selections. This tag captures a sort of gender critique of the selections and of this book's recovery work overall.

Religion

Religion is a central defining characteristic of some communities, and has influenced some of these author's identities and their rhetorical projects.

Racial Tensions

Communication across racial difference has often involved racism or xenophobia. This tag explores cross-race communication and representation as a theme.

Didactic Literature

Didactic writing includes instructional essays and other works with an educational purpose, which many of our selections have.

Family Ties

Family can have a strong influence on the life of these authors. This tag marks family structure and relationships as a significant theme in these author's lives and works.

Self-Determination

The self-determination tag considers issues autonomy, independence, or empowerment as well as captivity, enslavement, and restrictions in both the author's lives and work.

Travel

Travel — middle passage travel, transatlantic travel. It was different in the 1700s. Got a boat?

Beauty

Standards of beauty are often strongly based on gender identity, and play a role in the expectations set for our women writers. This tag explores the role of beauty in these authors' lives and work.