In their new book, "At Home in the World: Women Writers and Public Life, from Austen to the Present," Princeton professors Maria DiBattista and Deborah Nord re-evaluate the past two centuries of female novelists as their characters leave the threshold of home. The scholars turn their attention to how these characters engage with the most pressing issues of public life: economic and social justice, slavery, warfare, democratic reforms, globalization, and the clash of cultures.
The book, published this year by Princeton University Press, originated with the course "The Female Literary Tradition," which DiBattista and Nord began co-teaching in 2004. The course was started in the mid-1980s by Elaine Showalter, the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, and Sandra Gilbert, whom they describe as "pioneers of feminist literary criticism."