Women Writing Cloth: Migratory Fictions in the American Imaginary argues that cloth-work serves as a textual signifier of mobility and preservation, constituting a revolt against a devaluation of cultural heritage and a distrust of the self. Bona develops a new framework for examining analogies between weaving and storytelling, the flow of needlework across place and time, women's labor and status, and the power of cloth-work as both means and metaphor for cultural reintegration across borders.

"A sumptuous selection of short fiction and poetry. . . . Its invitation to share the passion of women's voices characterizes the entire volume."--"USA Today."

Women Writing Cloth: Migratory Fictions in the American Imaginary performs a ground-breaking intervention by uncovering the relationship between literary cloth-working women and migration in a range of American novels across centuries. Bona demonstrates how four authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros, and Adria Bernardi, innovate on pre-modern stories of weaving women in order to explore the intricate connections between handwork, resourcefulness, and mobility. Refracted through the lens of women’s migratory experiences vis-à-vis cloth-working aesthetics, Women Writing Cloth examines varied aspects of sewing—embroidering, quilting, and rebozo-making—as textual signifiers of mobility and preservation. Through authorial innovation,women’s handwork constitutes a revolt against a devaluation of cultural heritage and a distrust of the self. Women Writing Cloth argues that literary, cloth-working women inspire paradigmatic shifts in social codes due to portable skills that enabled their survival in the new world. Bona paints a complex picture of women whose migratory experiences taught them how to live within a stigmatizing culture and beneath institutional powers to control their artistry. Fabric designs assume fuller multicultural meaning when textiles cross borders and tell unspeakable stories that expose constraints typifying gender, race, and heritage. The authors examined simulate the artistic creativity of cloth-work by interrogating traditional assumptions about representation, chronology, and spatial boundaries. Women Writing Cloth breaks new ground to reveal the elaborate relationship between cloth-work expertise and women’s mobility. Variations of cloth-working women showcase a relationship between subversive artistry and institutional oppressions that compel strategies of resistance, enable survival, and, inspired by migration, construct inventive fabric creations. Women Writing Cloth engages the activity of cloth work as a means of reclamation and subversive expression represented in American literature.

Includes songs by Buddhist nuns, testimonies of medieval rebel poets and court historians, and the voices of more than 60 other writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Among the diverse selections are a rare early essay by an untouchable woman; an account by the first feminist historian; and a selection from the first novel written in English by an Indian woman.

Despite the misogynist ideology of Italian Fascism, and contrary to the picture drawn in the most post-war literary histories and anthologies, the 1920s and 1930s were a time of wide publication and both popular and critical recognition for female authors in Italy. Focusing on the cultural pages of three major daily newspapers of the period, Robin Pickering-Iazzi discovered a wealth of contributions by famous and less-known woman that have been unavailable to readers in Italy as well as the United States for over 60 years. Expertly translated, these 16 stories are evidence not only of the high literary quality of this body of work but also of resistance to the self-sacrificing ideal of the "New Woman" of Fascism. The memorable female characters in Unspeakable Women adopt a varying strategies to create their own identities and agency regarding writing, sexuality, marriage, and family-all in opposition to the repressive norms of the culture. The stories are by Grazia Deledda, who won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1926, Maria Luisa Astaldi, Gianna Manzini, Ada Negri, Carola Prosperi, Pia Rimini, and Clarice Tartufari.

Uncovers sources from the parish pauper to the gentlewoman to consider relationships with clothing across the social hierarchy in the long eighteenth century.Descriptions of women's clothing increasingly circulated across textual genres and beyond in eighteenth-century England. This book explores the significance of these descriptions across a range of sources including wills, newspapers, accounts, court records, and the records of the old poor law.Attention has rested on women literate and wealthy enough to leave behind textual or material traces, but this book ranges from the parish pauper to the gentlewoman to consider descriptive languages, rhetorical strategies, and relationships with clothing across the social hierarchy. It explores how women described their own clothing, but also looks at how it was described by overseers, family members, retailers, and even strangers. It shows that we must look beyond isolated descriptions to how, why, and who was describing clothing to understand its role. Chapters uncover themes of material obligation, expectation, and entitlement.This book also contributes to our understanding of the material literacy of eighteenth-century consumers. It traces the role of textual description in this dissemination of knowledge about clothing, but also alerts us to what was happening beyond the written word, drawing attention to the communication of multisensory information. Above all, it demonstrates that there remains much still to be unpicked from textual sources.ncover themes of material obligation, expectation, and entitlement.This book also contributes to our understanding of the material literacy of eighteenth-century consumers. It traces the role of textual description in this dissemination of knowledge about clothing, but also alerts us to what was happening beyond the written word, drawing attention to the communication of multisensory information. Above all, it demonstrates that there remains much still to be unpicked from textual sources.ncover themes of material obligation, expectation, and entitlement.This book also contributes to our understanding of the material literacy of eighteenth-century consumers. It traces the role of textual description in this dissemination of knowledge about clothing, but also alerts us to what was happening beyond the written word, drawing attention to the communication of multisensory information. Above all, it demonstrates that there remains much still to be unpicked from textual sources.ncover themes of material obligation, expectation, and entitlement.This book also contributes to our understanding of the material literacy of eighteenth-century consumers. It traces the role of textual description in this dissemination of knowledge about clothing, but also alerts us to what was happening beyond the written word, drawing attention to the communication of multisensory information. Above all, it demonstrates that there remains much still to be unpicked from textual sources.

Focusing on both literary and material networks, this book examines the nature of women's wealth in early modern England, as well as the ways that women's writing sought to manage and transmit this wealth. If material goods like jewels and cloth could substantiate powerful ties between mothers and daughters, Mazzola argues that literary artifacts like diaries, prayers and poetry similarly described and supported their ties.