This course will look at the shifting experience of women during the 18th, 19th & early 20th centuries through the lens of American and British autobiographical, poetic, political and fictional literature. How did women's writing shape gender equality at various points in history? Can early feminist works offer blueprints for personal empowerment today? By reading and discussing the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Brontë, Margaret Fuller, Virginia Woolf, and others, we will examine how women represented their own lives through creative means in an effort to make their voices heard. Whether subtle or revolutionary, these texts still speak with an urgency that is relevant to the contemporary gender issues influencing our lives. Students will engage with the course themes through a responsive journal, working towards a final creative, interdisciplinary, or scholarly project.