Sarah Creel

1. How did you become interested in eighteenth-century studies in particular?Ah, that’s a long (possibly boring!) story, but let me see if I can explain: I was always the child tucked away reading somewhere, so when I told my mom that I wanted to be a nursing major at Auburn University my freshman year of college, I think she was a bit shocked. Luckily, she had the foresight to talk me into working a summer at a local hospital, and it turns out that blood grossed me out (moms are so smart), so I walked back into my sophomore year of college and changed my major to English as fast as I could get an advising appointment. From there, I switched schools to a small liberal arts university just south of Montevallo, Alabama—a move that changed my life. Montevallo opened up worlds that I didn’t know possible; the small class sizes and fantastic professors nurtured and developed my love of reading, of writing, of thinking critically. Most importantly, Montevallo introduced me to Dr. Kathryn King who has become one of the most salient figures in not only my academic life, but also my personal life. Her MA class (I stayed at Montevallo for my masters degree) on the rise of the female-centered 18th century novel flipped a literary switch for me. King was deep in the throes of her first foray into Haywood, and it was one of the greatest pleasures of my academic life to be introduced to Haywood’s work by her. I was hooked.
2. What are you working on right now?
I teach a 5/4 load as a Lecturer at Kennesaw State University, so writing is something I have to reach for. Finding the time and the headspace has not been easy, but I teach at least four British Literature survey classes a year (late 1700s-present), so I stretch the boundaries of the survey to include usually Haywood and a few other of my favorites. I also had the opportunity to teach an 18th century course in the major last Spring, and I taught a Rise of the Female-Authored novel course to majors, which was such a delight. I’m focusing on teaching for this answer because quite honestly, this is what I have time to pour my energy into. But I think quite a bit about how much I miss the writing and researching life, and I have to remind myself that I haven’t abandoned it altogether. I’m absolutely delighted to attend the “Eliza Haywood: 300 Years of Love in Excess” conference in April, and I’ve been working on my paper for that, which is something that I would eventually like to see published. The paper looks at Haywood’s oeuvre through the lens of identity construction. I want to examine Haywood’s authorial personae in early works such as A Wife to Be Lett and The Tea-Table and think about how she positions herself in these text in comparison with later works like The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless. I enjoy taking what Juliette Merrit has called “the long view” of Haywood studies, and I think that looking at how Haywood postures and reputation builds is an underexplored area of Haywood studies.
3. How do you approach or incorporate gender or women’s studies in your work?
Gender and women’s studies have been the center of my work since I began writing academically. I focus specifically on Eliza Haywood in my scholarship, but I have always been interested in women’s lived experience as represented through their writing. Works like Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book” in which Bradstreet writes of the shame she feels upon finding her work published—going even as far as to compare it to a child she cannot love—have interested me from the beginning of my career. Women express so much through their writing—shame, pride, subversive proto-feminist messages to other women…I’m committed to using feminist theory and praxis in order to uncover these voices and listen to what they have to tell us about the life of the female author (and women in general) in the eighteenth century.
4. What is one book or article that you are reading now that gets your creative and/or analytic side going? Why? (eighteenth-century studies, scholarship, anything)
I have been working on my aforementioned authorial personae essay, so I have been leaning heavily on Manushag Powell’s Performing Authorship in Eighteenth-Century Periodicals. I lean on Powell’s definition of the eidolon as a self-consciously performative vehicle for launching textual voices into the world. This performance of authorship, according to Powell, helps negotiate a fluid sense of identity, and while Powell is working with periodicals and periodical culture, I want to look at several examples of identity construction through authorial personae in Haywood’s fiction and drama, so I find her work incredibly helpful. Plus, her writing is so smart and engaging to read—it’s an excellent model for me.
5. What more can we do to support women in academia? In ASECS?
​This might be a controversial answer to this question, but I have been thinking a lot about how we can support female scholars who have taken alternative academic or non-traditional career paths. We’re all aware of the paucity of tenure track jobs available, and I think it’s time that we broaden our sphere of support to women who are doing their best to stay in the field while also holding down jobs that aren’t tenure track or even academic (clearly this is a personal topic for me). It’s time we ask ourselves how we can reach out to lecturers, adjuncts, administrators, contract teachers, high school teachers, independent scholars, etc. How can we support them as they navigate a career that does not support (time-wise or financially) an academic agenda? I think the answer lies in reaching out—offering these women space to complain, brainstorm, whatever they need to be reminded that they are a part of this community regardless of being outside the traditional space of the English department or the tenure track. Sharing resources such as articles, library passwords, and even hotel rooms at conferences for colleagues who don’t have travel budgets are also helpful ways to support these scholars. Further to this, invite us to co-author articles or join reading groups. We are in a time where the traditional route of graduate student to assistant professor is becoming less and less a reality. Expanding our feminist practice to accept more non-traditional scholarly jobs—and more importantly, those women working within them—is one thing we can do to make sure that their voices are not lost.

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