In the Neighborhood: Women’s Publication in Early America. By Caroline Wigginton. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press. 2016. xi, 223 pp. Paper, $25.95.
Informed by archival research, this monograph examines early American publics through the lens of women’s quotidian exchanges. Shifting the conversation away from a traditional focus on male-authored republican print culture, Wigginton directs her readers to what she calls women’s “relational publication,” or how a variety of technologies—material, scriptive, print, or performative—could dynamically shape public and private worlds. Through close readings, Wigginton attends to the particularity of the works of Creek diplomat Coosaponakeesa, African American poet Phillis Wheatley, and Quaker poet Milcah Martha Moore, illustrating how these women conceptualized community and even shifted the balance of power.
Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples. By Kerry Driscoll. Oakland: Univ. of California Press. 2018. xvi, 448 pp. Cloth, $95.00; paper, $34.95; e-book, $95.00.
Drawing from a...