This is an interesting article from the June 23, 2018 Sunday New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/insider/mexico-world-cup-spanish-accent-marks.html

Paulina Chavira, an editor at The New York Times en Español in the Mexico City bureau, lobbied to have proper accents added to the jerseys of the Mexican National soccer (fútbol) team. The lack of accent, the article clarifies, is akin to a spelling error.

"A simple accent may seem trivial for a lot of people, but its presence or its absence changes the way we pronounce a word, and sometimes even its meaning," Chavira is quoted as saying.

Indeed, if we are as dedicated as we say we are to representing people as they wish to be represented - such as using a person's pronoun of choice - shouldn't it be just as important to be certain we're spelling that person's name correctly? It's a small change, but it can make a big difference to someone.

One of the best ways to become a better writer is to read more. While the deluge of social media certainly spoonfeeds (and sometimes force feeds) us plenty of options for reading, sometimes we need to seek things out, rather than just reading what's readily available.

I was intrigued by this obituary in the June 22 New York Times, about Nina Baym, a professor who dedicated her career to the discovery of unknown women writers. In college, I chose a major in women's studies because I was interested in looking at history, literature, culture, etc. through a lens that was different from what I'd always studied previously. (And because I was flunking statistics, which pretty much screwed my psych major. #brutalhonesty).

From the obituary, by writer Neil Genzingler, a quote from Professor Baym:

“Today we hear of this literature, if at all, chiefly through detractors who deplore the feminizing — and hence degradation — of the noble art of letters. A segment of literary history is thus lost to us, a segment that may be of special interest today as we seek to recover and understand the experiences of women.
I have not unearthed a forgotten Jane Austen or George Eliot, or hit upon even one novel that I would propose to set alongside ‘The Scarlet Letter.’ Yet I cannot avoid the belief that ‘purely’ literary criteria, as they have been employed to identify the best American works, have inevitably had a bias in favor of things male — in favor, say, of whaling ships rather than the sewing circle as a symbol of the human community; in favor of satires on domineering mothers, shrewish wives, or betraying mistresses rather than tyrannical fathers, abusive husbands, or philandering suitors.”

Please read Professor Baym's obituary in full here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/obituaries/nina-baym-who-brought-novels-by-women-to-light-dies-at-82.html

Discussion questions:
1) Tell us about a little-known female writer (or writer of color, LGBT writer, etc) you admire and why. How did you come to know of this person's work?
2) What do you think the value is in uncovering the work of writers who are not considered to be part of the literary canon, or otherwise well-known?
3) Why was Professor Baym's quest to discover the work of unknown female authors important? Or, conversely, why was it unimportant?