184 Reviews in the ancient world, in early modern England, and in modern society. The essay is well focused, and perceptive in its reading both of its source material and ofthe mores of society. Ruth Herman has chosen a fascinating subject for her contribution: 'Enigmatic Gender in Delarivier Manley's New Atlantis'. Although her analysis is of necessity complex and at times speculative, she handles the subject matter with confidence, and her assertion of deliberate fictive gender reversal will encourage readers to reassess the material with which she is concerned. The following two essays, by Elizabeth Kubek and Rachel K. Carnell, focus upon the work of Eliza Haywood. Kubek figures Haywood as a proto-feminist figure, immersed in the politics of her day. Kubek explores the links between eroticism and politics and the energy that is derived from opposition, within both gender and poli? tics. Carnell is also concerned to show how Haywood was able to work as a politically astute female writer within a male political and literary discourse. She asks that readers reassess Haywood as a political force rather than simply 'as a hack writer of sexually scandalous domestic fiction' (p. 257). Chris Mounsey develops the theme of subversive gendering in literary production in his essay on Christopher Smart. By evaluating the reasons behind, and the success of, Smart's ploy of writing as a woman in his journal The Midwife, Mounsey is able to allude to the previous essays and to conclude what is an interesting and challenging collection. University of Reading Lucinda Becker Crossing Boundaries: Attending to Early Modern Women. Ed. by Jane Donawerth and Adele Seeff. Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Asso? ciated University Presses. 2000. 332 pp. ?35. ISBN 0-87413-745-4. I was eager to read this 'book-of-the-conference' because I had myself attended the 1997 session of 'Attending to Early Modern Women' at the University of Maryland, entitled 'Crossing Boundaries'. The conference's unusual format is reflected in the book's structure. It is divided into sections, as was the conference: 'The Body and the Self, 'Law and Criminality', 'Travel and Settlement',and 'Pedagogy'. Thus this vol? ume offersten excellent research papers, albeit on rather diverse subjects, including Karen Newman's brilliant plenary address, Armchair Travel'. As a bonus, the book offers short summaries of thirty-nine workshops, which is the innovative facet of this ten-year-old project. Groups of scholars, who must re? present at least two differentdisciplines, are invited to run workshops at the biennial conference, and provide readings for workshop participants on a topic which must be interdisciplinary. The conference, then, is more than usually open to discussion and participation, making a book of the proceedings even more difficult to unify than most conference volumes. In her introduction, which attempts to do just that, Anne Lake Prescott suggests that the workshops offer'an opportunity for interdisci? plinary conversation, the exchange of helpful information or questions, and the start of friendships or collaborations'. What they do not, and cannot, offeris enquiry at the level usually designated as research. For example, I was asked to consider Elizabeth Cellier's writing in a session which did not consider the complex history of the Mealtub Plot, outside of which it does not make sense. Experience of several workshops proved that the dominant methodology was a crudely essentialist type of feminist lit? erary criticism, perhaps the only option, given the limitations of the workshop format and the diversity of the disciplines represented there. Fortunately, workshop summaries in the volume are far more scholarly. Organizers of one session I had attended had clearly decided in advance what they wanted MLR, 98.1,2003 185 the participants to say. Another report edited out any comments by participants. I suppose the summary counts as some kind of 'publication', but since there is no in? dex to the subject matter of the workshops, the volume indicates its essential lack of interest in them. This is disappointing, as a trawl through the many pages of reports does reveal some gems: fascinating historical material, as in Workshop 11, 'Exposing the Female Body in Seventeenth-Century England', or the informed investigationof crucial issues, as in...