Margaret Webster presided over many firsts in the American theater. She was the first woman to direct Shakespearean plays on Broadway, she was one of the founders of the American Repertory Theatre, she was active in the beginning of the Off-Broadway movement, and she wrote an assortment of articles, speeches, memoirs, and autobiographies. This reference provides an overview of her life and a detailed record of her many accomplishments in 20th-century American theater. The volume begins with a biographical essay that discusses her life and career. A chronology then highlights the most significant events in her career. The sections that follow list her many productions for the stage and opera, and provide detailed information about them. A discography is also included, followed by lists of Webster's awards and honors, and a description of the various archives that hold information about her. An extensive annotated bibliography concludes the work.
The selected speeches of Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine made throughout her 32 year career in the U.S. Congress are critically analyzed in this rhetorical study. The inquiry focuses on the factors of her political persona that garnered her the support of her constituents and the respect of her colleagues. The chapters are each titled with a segment of her political identity—an American, a Republican, and a women. Thus this work will be of interest to students and scholars of U.S. politics, communications, and women's studies. In addition, this popular political figure should be of interest to readers who want to learn more about the first female U.S. Senator.
One of the most influential American women writers of the 19th century, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) played a vital role in the shaping of New England Transcendentalism and the birth of the women's movement. Her Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) was the first thorough discussion of feminism by an American. As a feminist manifesto, her treatise examined the economic, political, and cultural roles of women in society. As the editor of The Dial, the quarterly literary and philosophical publication of the Transcendentalists, she was in close contact with Emerson, Thoreau, and other leading thinkers of the era. As a staff member of the New York Tribune, she developed a widespread reputation as a critic. Her influence was so great that her ideas and persona were reflected in the literary works of Hawthorne, Lowell, and other writers of the period.For many decades, Margaret Fuller was largely neglected by the scholarly community. While she was always considered a pioneering feminist, she was also seen as only a peripheral figure of the American Renaissance. In recent years, however, scholarship on Fuller has exploded, and her great contributions to 19th century American literature and culture are receiving much attention. This bibliography cites and annotates several hundred scholarly studies about Fuller published between 1983 and 1995. It also provides entries for roughly 100 works about Fuller not included in the author's previous bibliographies. Entries are grouped in chapters devoted to each year, so that the reader may trace the growth in Fuller scholarship. A comprehensive index allows the user to locate sources according to author, subject, and periodical title.
Describes the life and career the the anthropoligist, including her childhood in Pennsylvania, her tutelage under Franz Boas, and her fieldwork in the South Pacific.
This book offers readers a concise introduction to Atwood's published novels and the central themes motivating her writing. The volume starts with an overview of the author's biography and the relationship of her writing to relevant literary traditions. Because Atwood is internationally renowned, many commentaries ignore the Canadian roots of her work. Cooke corrects this oversight by sketching the ways in which her work is shaped by, and has shaped, the Canadian literary scene. As the author of a full-length Atwood biography, Cooke is able to summarize feminist, Canadian nationalist, and postmodern influences on Atwood's work and on her development as a writer. The book offers close scrutiny of three illustrative works: Cat's Eye as the artist novel, The Handmaid's Tale as a dystopian novel, and The Blind Assassin as a villainess novel. This book extends the dialogue surrounding Atwood's work in several important ways. As a book written by a Canadian about a Canadian writer, it illustrates how readings of Atwood's work can be significantly enriched through attention to the Canadian literary and cultural context. Noting that Atwood's work not only entertains but also challenges and disturbs, it argues that all of Atwood's novels can be read as satires that expose society's double standards. By locating the beginnings of satire as far back as Atwood's first published novel, and tracing it in Atwood's later novels as the impulse behind challenges to character (in the artist novels), setting (in the dystopic fiction), and plot (in the villainess novels), this study provides a startlingly original interpretation of The Blind Assassin and new insights into the earlier novels.
St. Margaret of Antioch was one of the most popular saints in medieval England and, throughout the Middle Ages, the various Lives of St. Margaret functioned as a blueprint for a virginal life and supernatural assistance to pregnant women during the dangerous process of labor. In her narrative, Margaret is accosted by various demons and, having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. This book argues that Margaret’s monsters are a key element in understanding Margaret’s importance to her adherents, specifically how the sexual identities of her adherents were constructed and maintained. More broadly, this study offers three major contributions to the field of medieval studies: first, it argues for the utility of a diachronic analysis of Saints’ Lives literature in a field dominated by synchronic analyses; second, this diachronic analysis is important to interpreting the intertext of Saints’ Lives, not only between different Lives but also different versions of the same Life; and third, the approach further suggests that the most valuable socio-cultural information in hagiographic literature is found in the auxiliary characters and not in the figure of the saint him/herself.
Margaret Drabble is a writer who plays a lively role in both popular and literary culture. Widely read and studied throughout the world her novels attract both the general reader and the literary critic. Originally published in 1985, Joanne Creighton examines this phenomenon and places particular emphasis on her "Englishness", her role as a woman writing credibly about modern women and her ability to mediate between the traditional and the modern. She argues that the resonances of Drabble’s work grow put of her strong sense of the powers and resources of existing literary traditions coupled with her intelligent portrayal of the familiar problems of people in modern society, and that is precisely this mediating position which makes Drabble an important voice in contemporary fiction and links her with other writers of her generation. Challenging those critics who see Drabble as a fiction traditionalist. Creighton finds her work open-ended, inquiring, equivocal and unquestionably contemporary in spirit.
Margaret Drabble is a writer who plays a lively role in both popular and literary culture. Widely read and studied throughout the world her novels attract both the general reader and the literary critic. Originally published in 1985, Joanne Creighton examines this phenomenon and places particular emphasis on her "Englishness", her role as a woman writing credibly about modern women and her ability to mediate between the traditional and the modern. She argues that the resonances of Drabble’s work grow put of her strong sense of the powers and resources of existing literary traditions coupled with her intelligent portrayal of the familiar problems of people in modern society, and that is precisely this mediating position which makes Drabble an important voice in contemporary fiction and links her with other writers of her generation. Challenging those critics who see Drabble as a fiction traditionalist. Creighton finds her work open-ended, inquiring, equivocal and unquestionably contemporary in spirit.
Intensely persecuted during the English Interregnum, early Quakers left a detailed record of the suffering they endured for their faith. Margaret Fell, Letters, and the Making of Quakerism is the first book to connect the suffering experience with the communication network that drew the faithful together to create a new religious community. This study explores the ways in which early Quaker leaders, particularly Margaret Fell, helped shape a stable organization that allowed for the transition from movement to church to occur. Fell’s role was essential to this process because she developed and maintained the epistolary exchange that was the basis of the early religious community. Her efforts allowed for others to travel and spread the faith while she served as nucleus of the community’s communication network by determining how and where to share news. Memory of the early years of Quakerism were based on the letters Fell preserved. Marjon Ames analyzes not only how Fell’s efforts shaped the inchoate faith, but also how subsequent generations memorialized their founding members.
Exploring how Margaret Atwood’s fiction reimagines the figure of the detective and the nature of crime, Jackie Shead shows how the author radically reworks the crime fiction genre. Shead focuses on Surfacing, Bodily Harm, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake and selected short fiction, showing the ways in which Atwood’s protagonists are confronted by their own collusion in hegemonic assumptions and thus are motivated to investigate and expose crimes of gender, class and colonialism. Shead begins with a discussion of how Atwood’s treatment of crime fiction’s generic elements, particularly those of the whodunit, clue puzzle and spy thriller, departs from convention. Through discussion of Atwood’s metafictive strategies, Shead also examines Atwood’s techniques for activating her readers as investigators who are offered an educative process parallel to that experienced by some of the author’s protagonists. This book also marks a significant intervention in an ongoing debate among Atwood critics that pits the author’s postmodernism against her ethical and humanistic concerns.
The first comprehensive study of this major Canadian author to be informed by feminist critical theory. Dr. Rigney examines Atwood's poetry, fiction and critical essays, as well as her artistic and political views, and affirms their relevance within a feminist context.
A true story from one of the Women of NASA Margaret Hamilton loved numbers as a young girl. She knew how many miles it was to the moon (and how many back). She loved studying algebra and geometry and calculus and using math to solve problems in the outside world. Soon math led her to MIT and then to helping NASA put a man on the moon She handwrote code that would allow the spacecraft's computer to solve any problems it might encounter. Apollo 8. Apollo 9. Apollo 10. Apollo 11. Without her code, none of those missions could have been completed. Dean Robbins and Lucy Knisley deliver a lovely portrayal of a pioneer in her field who never stopped reaching for the stars.
A bunny-rific bedtime story from the author of Goodnight Moon Margaret Wise Brown's sweet, poetic tale about a little bunny and why he has to whisper was origininally published in the classic Golden Book The Golden Sleepy Book. Now newly illustrated in dreamy, seasonal pastels, this story is being reissued to delight the next generation of Little Golden Books fans.
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) was the dominant British political leader of our age. No postwar prime minister has equalled the impact she made on modern British history, nor matched her influence on the European and world stages. But, as she becomes a historical figure, how to distinguish myth from reality? The daunting quantity (and variable quality) of literature already available on Thatcher makes it decidedly difficult to discriminate the significant from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. Moreover, because no comparable British politician has had such profound effects on political and cultural life, valuable evaluations of Thatcher originate from a broad range of scholarly disciplines, as well as from serious sources outside the academy. To make some sense of these widely dispersed materials, Routledge announces the first in a projected new series of Critical Assessments of Key Political Leaders.Edited by Tim Bale (Queen Mary, University of London), the author of a prize-winning history of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher is a four-volume collection. It draws on the best work of modern historians and political scientists, as well as those working in gender and cultural studies. The collection allows users quickly and easily to access both established and cutting-edge assessments of Thatcher’s life and work. With a comprehensive introductory essay providing essential background information and relating the various pieces to each other, Margaret Thatcher is destined to be an indispensable resource for research and study.
"Engaging . . . a fine biography that gets beyond the public icon to a portrait of the real woman."--Chicago Sun-Times At the age of twenty-three, in the 1920s, Margaret Mead traveled alone to the South Sea and wrote of adolescent sexuality and guilt-free love in her now classic Coming of Age in Samoa. For the next half-century, Mead would act as a powerful participant and opinion maker in the largest issues of her time: culture and religion, education and child rearing, sex and freedom, world hunger, war, and the politics of peace. Outrageous and extravagant, Mead was, in every sense of the word, spirited. Friendships and families of many kinds were at the core of her personal life, and she was both loyal and demanding with people, always challenging them to move in new directions. An inveterate world traveler, a teacher at Columbia University, and curator of The Museum of Natural History, Mead wrote thirty-four books, made ten films, and was granted twenty-eight honorary degrees and numerous awards. This intimate and fascinating story is an astonishing record of the personal and scientific life of an extraordinary human being. Praise for Margaret Mead "Mead was, as Miss Howard's abundantly and unfailing lively account shows, a very American individual. . . . Miss Howard writes not as an anthropologist but as the superb reporter she is."--The Wall Street Journal"A triumph of industry, imagination, and literary grace."--The Washington Post
"This collection shows that women have seen themselves as aggressive and receptive lovers, as well as philosophically sexual and loving partners, since the beginning of recorded history." -- SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Here is the first collection of female erotic writing through the ages, and the first to reveal the form's amazing scope--as multifaceted as the sexuality of women themselves. EROTICA reveals the history of women's erotic writing and reexamines the literary expression of female sexuality. Included in this unique anthology are: Kathy Acker, Jane Austen, Anne Boleyn, Kate Copin, H.D., Radclyffe Hall, Edna O'Brien, Vita Sackville-West, Stevie Smith, Marina Tsvetayeva, Virginia Woolf, and many others.
Brought together by war, separated by duty, a love story for the ages Margaret Kennedy lives on a dairy farm in rural Maine. Her husband Thomas--injured in a war overseas--will never be the man he was. When the President signs a bill in support of wounded veterans, Margaret is invited to the nation's capital. Charlie King, a handsome Foreign Service officer, volunteers to escort her. As the rhododendron blossoms along the Blue Ridge Highway, the unlikely pair fall in love--but Margaret cannot ignore the tug of her marriage vows. Joseph Monninger's Margaret from Maine is a page-turning romance that poignantly explores the dilemmas faced by those who serve our country--and the men and women who love them.
"In Milly Barranger, Margaret Webster has found the perfect biographer. In Margaret Webster, Milly Barranger has found her perfect subject. She brings to vivid life a fascinating and important theater figure whose public and private lives were of equal interest. In this carefully researched book, Webster's colleagues, lovers, and friends shine as brightly as she did. I wish she were here to read it."-Marian Seldes"Margaret Webster is a highly welcome addition to our knowledge of the first important female director in American theater. Remembered now especially for her staging of Othello with Paul Robeson, Uta Hagen, and Jose Ferrer, Margaret Webster was probably the best-known, in-demand, and admired director of Shakespeare in America in the 1940s and 1950s. Fascinating throughout, the book's discussions of working with Robeson, and of HUAC, which targeted her just as her career was reaching a peak, make for especially engrossing reading."-Oscar BrockettMargaret Webster: A Life in the Theater is an engrossing backstage account of the life of pioneering director Margaret Webster (1905-72). This is the first book-length biography of Webster, a groundbreaking stage and opera director whose career challenged not only stage tradition but also mainstream attitudes toward professional women. Often credited with first having brought Shakespeare to Broadway, and renowned for her bold casting of an African American (Paul Robeson) in the role of Othello, Webster was a creative force in modern American and British theater.Her story reveals the independent-minded artist undeterred by stage tradition and unmindful of rules about a woman's place in the professional theater. In addition to providing fascinating glimpses into Webster's personal and family life, Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater also offers a who's-who list of the biggest names in New York and London theater of the time, as well as Hollywood: John Gielgud, Noël Coward, George Bernard Shaw, Uta Hagen, Sybil Thorndike, Eva LeGallienne, and John Barrymore, among others, all of whom crossed paths with Webster. Capping Webster's amazing story is her investigation by Senator Joseph McCarthy and HUAC, which left her unable to work for a year, and from which she never fully recovered.
