Early Modern Women's Writing and the Future of Literary History

Lara Dodds is Professor and Head in the Department of English at Mississippi State University. She is the author of The Literary Invention of Margaret Cavendish (Duquesne, 2013). Her research and teaching areas include Margaret Cavendish, early modern women's writing, John Milton, science fiction and adaptation studies.Michelle M. Dowd is Hudson Strode Professor of English and Director of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama. Her research and teaching focus primarily on Shakespeare, early modern drama, and early modern women's writing. She is the author of Women's Work in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (Palgrave, 2009), which won the Sara A. Whaley Book Award from the National Women's Studies Association, and of The Dynamics of Inheritance on the Shakespearean Stage (Cambridge, 2015). She is also editor of the book series, Strode Studies in Early Modern Literature and Culture, published by the University of Alabama Press.

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Undead Authors and Happy Accidents Part I Old Questions 1: What is Women's Writing? 2: Are We Postcanonical Yet? 3: Is it Any Good? Part II New Directions 4: Premodern Critical Race Studiesand Women's Writing 5: Early Modern Women's Writing and the Case for Feminist Formalism 6: Early Modern Women in the Classroom: Pedagogy, Innovation, and the Future of Literary History Coda: The Future We Need Now Bibliography Index

This is a compelling, well-written, well-organized, and well-argued work that convincingly states that the reading, studying, and teaching of early modern women's writing is essential to understanding the literature of the time period and the future of the discipline. It is likewise essential reading.