Fighting and Sailing Women in Anglo-American Prints, Songs, and History (1600—present)

Plenary talk for the UGA Symposium on the Book

Folksinger, scholar, and creative writer Dianne Dugaw has published articles, scholarly books, stories, and memoir. Professor of English and Folklore at the University of Oregon, she has performed and lectured at universities, libraries, galleries, and festivals in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. She is the author of books and articles on early modern and 18th-century literature and culture, especially exploring gender and sexuality in folksongs, literature, and history. Her creative stories appear in such magazines as Blueline, Soundings, Slippery Elm, and Mount Hope. Her 5-volume study and edition, Memoirs of Scandalous Women (2011), makes available life-stories of memorable 18th-century women--two outspoken courtesans and four cross-dressing soldiers. Recent discussions of balladry appear in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (2012) and in “Heroines Gritty and Tender, Printed and Oral, Late-Breaking and Traditional,” a chapter in Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500–1800 (2012) that revisits the topic of her first book, Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650–1850 (1996). Her CD recording, Dangerous Examples—Fighting & Sailing Women in Song (2001, www.cdbaby.com) gives a sampling of songs about warrior women from the Elizabethan era to the modern age. Her ranch childhood in a musical and religious family informs both her interest in literature and traditional songs about women heroes and her memoir How Do the Horses Know? Growing Up Cowgirl. She is currently writing about her youthful years as a Catholic nun.