"Keeping Pictures, Keeping House"

21 January 2020: “...what is seen is less a fiction invented by the critic than a textual provocation—a call to which we are solicited to respond. Accordingly, as we dwell in the fold where the material and the speculative collapse, possibilities emerge for rethinking sentimentalism and its attendant scripts of race, gender, authorship, and domestic labor.” --Michael A. Chaney (264)

Spent lots of time today reading some Harriet Jacobs scholarship, including Chaney's piece, an examination of a picture (probably?) of Louisa Jacobs that is among Fanny Fern's papers. The Fern/Jacobs connection is one of my favorites ti think about (and tell students about) and this piece really dives into what makes that connection so thrilling.

Work Cited

Chaney, Michael A. “Keeping Pictures, Keeping House: Harriet and Louisa Jacobs, Fanny Fern, and the Unverifiable History of Seeing the Mulatta.” ESQ, vol. 59, no. 2, 2013, pp. 262-290. Project Muse.