CURRENTS: Kevin Wisniewski and Lisa Vetter
Monday, November 3, 2014 at 12:00 PM
Location
Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 216
Date & Time
November 3, 2014, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Description
CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now
The Hopkinson Hoax of 1763
Kevin Wisniewski, Ph.D. student, Language Literacy and Culture
Fall 2014 Dresher Center Graduate Residential Fellow
As a literary device, the hoax is a slippery term. A popular maneuver among British writers like Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Daniel Defoe and Benjamin Franklin, hoaxes were used to mislead and mystify readers and to disrupt bureaucratic systems. They inspired a number of young writers growing up in the era leading up to the American Revolution. Before signing the Declaration of Independence, designing the American flag, and penning dozens of wartime propaganda including the famous "Battle of the Kegs," Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) was a poet and composer. Scholars consider one of his earliest published poems “Science,” the first pirated work in the American colonies. But what if the highly publicized quarrels following these pirated copies were part of an elaborate marketing scheme for not one but three separate Hopkinson titles?
An American Enlightenment: Political Theory and the Origins of American Feminism
Lisa Vetter, Assistant Professor, Political Science
I am currently working on a book project that makes the case that several pivotal figures in the 19th century American women’s rights movement deserve to be incorporated into the received narrative of American political thought. I argue that a more inclusive approach is necessary to fully appreciate the richness and diversity of the history of American political theory. The book focuses on several female writers and activists who are not typically considered political theorists, including Frances Wright, Harriet Martineau, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I show that these women were engaging in many of the same theoretical debates as their mainstream male counterparts and on many different levels. Equally important, these women often innovated on and broadened traditional theoretical teachings to better accommodate women and the disenfranchised. For my talk, I will give an overview of the major arguments made in the book and discuss the challenges I have encountered in performing interdisciplinary research, broadening a male-dominated “canon” of political theory, and adapting scholarly work to a broader audience.
Lunch will be available from 11:30; the presentation starts at noon in the Dresher Center conference room, PAHB 216.