Hidden LiteraciesMain MenuHidden Literacies - An IntroductionPhillis Wheatley, Amanuensisa letter from Susanna Wheatley, likely dictated to the famous poet she enslaved — with commentary by Katy L. ChilesWalt Whitman’s Baby Talka Confederate veteran writes fan mail in the voice of his infant son — with commentary by Matt Cohen‘Permit Us to Speak Plainly’the 1849 Munsee Petition to Zachary Taylor — with commentary by Andrew NewmanJuvenile Journalism and Genocidea manuscript magazine by three young boys — with commentary by Karen Sánchez-EpplerVisions, Versions, and DeedsCreek Sovereignty in Coosaponakeesa’s Memorials — with commentary by Caroline WiggintonAccounting for Mary Fowler Occoma household inventory of Mary Occom — with commentary by Kelly WisecupLetters and Charactersletter from Walter Duncan to Dollie Duncan from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary — with commentary by Ellen CushmanWriting the Prisoncongregate literacy in the New York penitentiary — with commentary by Jodi Schorb‘Outlandish Characters’a Kickapoo prayer stick — with commentary by Phillip RoundCesar Lyndon Was Herethe account book of an enslaved man in colonial Rhode Island — with commentary by Tara A. BynumBirch-Bark Publications of Simon PokaganMargaret NoodinHidden Literacies - The PodcastAll podcast episodesHidden Literacies - CreditsIndexIndex of all pages
chosen to annotate
12019-07-12T12:49:16+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed9677214111Cohen page 15plain2019-07-12T12:49:16+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141Walt Whitman Works Referenced in the LetterI have chosen to annotate the text lightly and have included a separate document detailing sources for Johnson’s more obvious allusions to Whitman’s poetry and prose. But I chose not to provide a regularized text of the letter. As a long line of textual scholars has observed, regularization may open a work’s audience a bit, but it has the potential to oversimplify the text and certainly to create a more subtle but not necessarily helpful interpretation of it at the same time. The drawbacks are exacerbated here by the many illegible parts of the letter, which make determining tense and sometimes vocabulary choice difficult. These gaps and illegibilities in the letter themselves prompt a concluding thought. We tend to prefer “whole” or “complete” documents when we are teaching, which is partly a function of a persistent emphasis on close reading that, at least in the New Critical model, requires an integral text, and partly a function of what kinds of things we imagine our students are learning—reading, not decipherment; interpretation of text, not of the material properties thereof; a window onto literary history, not a broken mirror or half-heard echo.
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12019-07-11T16:28:05+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141Commentary: Essay and PodcastJoelle Thomas13Cohen 1plain1102021-01-15T17:36:15+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141
12021-02-16T20:07:58+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141IndexJoelle Thomas8Index of all pagesvispath2021-02-16T21:16:42+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141