SOCIAL AND CULTURAL APPROACHES TO TEACHING WOMEN'S WRITING BY USING DATABASES

Abstract

The present article intends to produce new historiography about the nineteenth century Romanian women's writing from transnational and relational perspectives. It also takes as its starting point not only the production aspect of women's literary writing, but their reception-- especially by readers or other women writers or translators contemporary to the publication. This approach takes into account all the contributions to the literary field of both canonical and non-canonical women writers. A second approach refers to the fact that women's writing is viewed from an explicitly transnational perspective, underlining the connections between women writers across the world at the literary and translation levels. By using these methods, the students get familiar with social and cultural contexts in which women's writing was produced, promoted, and translated. As a member of the European project Women Writers in History I have taken part into training schools, workshops and conference where along with my colleagues from other 25 countries I have worked for the Women Writers database (www.womenwriters.nl) as an electronic means for teaching literature. The present database contains information on the production of women writers from the Middle Ages up to 1900, and on the reception of their writing in the world. Thus the database offers students the possibility to study these women's writing in their international context and make connections concerning their transnational historiography. The entries for authors refer to biographical details, professional situation, writing achievements (fictional and non-fictional writings), translations, national and international critical reception, allowing the students to analyze women's writing from a comparative perspective.