[With apologies for cross-posting; please circulate widely]

 

Dear all,

 

We are very excited to announce a new open-access research tool! Women Writers: Intertextual Networks is the result of a three-year project focusing on intertextuality in early women’s writing. This collaborative research initiative examined the citation and quotation practices of the authors represented in Women Writers Online (WWO) to explore and theorize the representation of intertextuality, and to study the ways in which early women writers named, cited, quoted, and remixed texts by other authors. We identified and encoded each of these “intertextual gestures” within the Women Writers Project collection, traced their sources, and created a bibliography representing all of the materials referenced by WWP authors. We also gathered a team of external collaborators who prepared exhibits exploring particular forms and uses of intertextuality in women’s writing, which are being published in Women Writers in Context, our open-access collection of critical exhibits. This project was generously funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

The interface offers many ways to explore early women writers' engagements with other authors and texts. There are four interconnected "explorer" spaces focused on different aspects of the data: the bibliography, the topics and genres referenced, the intertextual gestures, and the authors in Women Writers Online. 

• The Bibliography of works quoted, named, cited, or otherwise referenced by the authors in Women Writers Online currently includes more than 3,000 works. 
• The Topics & Genres explorer includes referenced texts that range from agriculture to ethics to history to travel writing. 
• The Intertextual Gestures explorer supports filtering by the different types of intertextual gestures, the various works that are referenced, the topics and genres of the referenced works, and the WWO source texts and authors. 
• Finally, the Authors in WWO explorer provides a summary view of the intertextual gestures in each of the 440 texts in the Women Writers Online collection.

 

We are especially excited about the teaching possibilities for Intertextual Networks: if you have ideas about using Intertextual Networks in the classroom, or if you’re interested in joining our teaching partners program, please contact us! Teaching partners receive free access to Women Writers Online and can share course materials at the WWP site. We also plan to continue sharing the research made possible through this project on the Women Writers in Context platform. If you are interested in submitting an exhibit to Women Writers in Context, please see our guidelines for authors and our statement on peer review. To learn more about this project and its development, please visit the WWP blog.

 

Intertextual Networks may become slow at times of high usage. We ask for your patience as you explore all that the site has to offer.

 

Intertextual Networks has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Please contact [log in to unmask] if you have questions about or feedback on Intertextual Networks.

 

Many thanks,

 

Sarah

 

Sarah Connell

Assistant Director

Women Writers Project

Northeastern University