Gender, Science, and Authority in Womens Travel Writing: Literary Perspectives on the Discourse of Natural History

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Gender, Science, and Authority in Womens Travel Writing: Literary Perspectives on the Discourse of Natural History analyzes the interrelations among authority, gender and the scientific discipline of natural history in the works of transatlantic women travelers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Michelle Medeiros sheds new light on our understanding of the literary perspectives of the discourse of natural history and how these viewpoints had a surprising impact in areas that went beyond scientific fields.

This book advances the study of travel writing and gender in new directions by bringing together Latin American, European, and American women travelers who actively engaged in natural history discussions in their writings. By demonstrating how these women were only able to participate in intellectual enterprises by embarking on transatlantic voyages, this book discloses how the work produced by these travelers challenged and reshaped dominant discourses, bringing a new point of view to nineteenth and twentieth-centuries studies in Latin American history, literature, cultural studies, and history of science. Moreover, this book analyzes to what extent the approaches employed by female travel writers who wanted to engage in the production of knowledge has evolved in that time period, and to what degree such changes could be considered positive and more productive.

Reviews

Gender, Science, and Authority in Women's Travel Writing by Michelle Medeiros is a remarkable book that examines the fundamental work of women travelers in scientific discourses and circles through their alternate visibility as transatlantic subjects. The book moreover unveils important archival material that adds to our knowledge of their role in complex social networks. An important contribution to our understanding of science in the nineteenth century.

* Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature *

Gender, Science and Authority in Women's Travel Writing: Literary Perspectives on the Discourse of Natural History is a thickly layered study of authority, gender and the discourse of natural history in travel narratives penned by women in the nineteenth century. The book examines the writings of four women: the British botanist Maria Graham, the Cuban-Spanish author Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, the Brazilian writer and educator Nisia Floresta, and the AmericaN naturalist Doris Cochran. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the role women played in the construction of scientific knowledge and of the strategies employed by them to gain access into this male dominated field.

* Hispania *
Medeiros convincingly argues that the transatlantic traveling women discussed in this book were brave and strategic iconoclasts. By crossing geographical borders with their bodies, these women in turn broke social boundaries with their writing, opening up new textual and intellectual territories for other women to engage in debates about science, education, religion, and the natural world. Medeiros shows, too, how these writers powerfully spoke back to patriarchal, Eurocentric scientific writing practices that constructed the Americas as primitive and empty, and put both women and the Americas on the world stage as important producers of culture. That they did all this while appearing to adhere to social mores of their times makes their achievement all the more remarkable. -- Erika Behrisch Elce, Royal Military College of Canada
At last, we have a major contribution to the literature on women travelers--the focus of which is Hispanic women, who have too often been absent from other texts. It will certainly appear on my syllabi. -- Felicia Campbell, Editor of Popular Culture Review
Michelle Medeiross Gender, Science, and Authority in Womens Travel Writing makes a landmark contribution to 19^th- and 20^th-century Latin American literary and cultural studies. Based on impressive archival research and sharp readings of primary and secondary works, Medeiros shows how the language of science and natural history provided a vocabulary, methodology, and critical perspective for women travelers who moved in heterogeneous, international circles. By advancing the concept of a transatlantic subjectivity, Medeiros broadens our understanding of the multiple roles privileged and nonprivileged women travelers played and the diverse spaces in which they forged the authority to write and debate on topics of natural history. With this book, Medeiros brings to light exciting insights into the social networks these women developed, enriching the burgeoning fields of the history of women in science and Latin American studies. -- Marcia C. Stephenson, Purdue University

Author Bio

Michelle Medeiros is assistant professor of Spanish at Marquette University.