Professors co-edit new anthology that highlights the #MeToo movement through literature

A new, interdisciplinary anthology edited by two SUNY New Paltz faculty members considers the legacy of the #MeToo movement through the study of literature.

Heather Hewett, associate professor and department chair of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and Mary Holland, professor of English, are co-editors of “#MeToo and Literary Studies: Reading, Writing, and Teaching about Sexual Violence and Rape Culture,” published in October 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

This new collection gathers 28 essays on literature from Ovid to Carmen Maria Machado, by academics working across the United States and around the world, who offer clear ways of using our reading, teaching, and critical practices to address rape culture and sexual violence.

It’s designed as a resource to help students, teachers and scholars face and challenge cultures of sexual violence through the study of literature.

Among the selections are two essays by the editors: Hewett’s “Theorizing ‘Toxic’ Masculinity across Cultures and Nations,” about Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” and Holland’s “Quite Possibly the Last Essay I Need to Write about David Foster Wallace.”

Learn more about faculty research in the SUNY New Paltz Department of English and the Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at their websites.