{"id":199368,"date":"2024-06-14T16:38:28","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T02:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=199368"},"modified":"2024-06-14T16:39:12","modified_gmt":"2024-06-15T02:39:12","slug":"fanny-fern-americas-first-feminist-satirist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/06\/14\/fanny-fern-americas-first-feminist-satirist\/","title":{"rendered":"English professor showcases Fanny Fern, America&#8217;s first feminist satirist"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_199392\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-199392\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-english-fanny-fern-satire.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of Sara Parton and book cover\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-199392\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-english-fanny-fern-satire.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-english-fanny-fern-satire-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-english-fanny-fern-satire-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-199392\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left: Sara Parton also known as Fanny Fern, right: Caron\u2019s son Will, a <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa alumnus, created the illustration on the book cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Digging into 19th-century newspaper archives, James Caron, professor emeritus from the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/english.hawaii.edu\/\">Department of English<\/a>, recovered a literary treasure trove: the weekly columns of Sara Parton, known as &ldquo;Fanny Fern,&rdquo; who became America\u2019s most highly-paid woman columnist. From the 1850s to the 1870s, Parton captivated readers with her keen insights and satirical takes on social issues, especially domestic life and gender expectations.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;She\u2019s fearless, she&#8217;s absolutely fearless,&rdquo; explained Caron. &ldquo;She could be very sharp, even aggressive, with her wit. Some people at first thought that she was a man.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>For example, she has this to say about a proper woman: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;<em>I\u2019m not speaking of those doll-baby libels upon womanhood, whose chief ambition is to be walking advertisements for the dressmaker; but a rational, refined, sensible woman, who knows how to look like a lady upon small means<\/em>.&rdquo;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Caron, fascinated by Fern\u2019s clever wordplay, delved deep into her early newspaper writings and unpublished works. He recently published <em>The Modern Feminine in the Medusa Satire of Fanny Fern<\/em> (2024), which celebrates Fern as a foundational figure in a lineage of feminist satirists.<\/p>\n<p>During his 36-year tenure at <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa, Caron often incorporated Parton\u2019s writings into his courses on American humor.<\/p>\n<h2>Everybody laughs<\/h2>\n<p>Caron, a passionate fan of satirical literature, draws inspiration from literary giants like Mark Twain, who used satire to humorously critique society.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I started with an interest in folk stories and tall tales before the Civil War, then Mark Twain, and then any funny things that people wrote,&rdquo; Caron explained. &ldquo;Because everybody all around the world, everybody laughs. All cultures tell stories that make people laugh; it\u2019s very, very human.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He has authored previous books exploring satire\u2019s role in shaping public discourse: <em>Satire as the Comic Public Sphere: Postmodern &lsquo;Truthiness&rsquo; and Civic Engagement<\/em> (2021) and <em>Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter <\/em>(2008).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Related <em><abbr>UH<\/abbr> News<\/em> story: <a href=\u201chttps:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/01\/english-professor-examines-contemporary-satire\">English professor examines contemporary satire<\/a>, June 1, 2021<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&ldquo;Satire has a long-standing effort, all the way back to the Greeks and the Romans, to try to make the public sphere a better place,&rdquo; Caron said.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-031-41276-9\">The Modern Feminine in the Medusa Satire of Fanny Fern<\/a><\/em> can be found at the <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-031-41276-9\">Palgrave Macmillan website<\/a> and on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Feminine-Palgrave-Studies-Nineteenth-Century-Writing-ebook\/dp\/B0CJNBCZ48\">Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Caron published a book about America\u2019s highest-paid woman columnist, who captivated readers in the 19th century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[342,158,9],"class_list":["post-199368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-english","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199368"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199395,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199368\/revisions\/199395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}