Glossary

#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.

Launched by the Swedish Film Institute at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, this campaign sought to increase the representation of women in front of and behind the camera at film festivals.

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.

The Algonquin Round Table was a group of New York City writers, critics and actors. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle," as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929.

Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

An allusion is an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, thing, or a part of another text.

The American Equal Rights Association was formed in 1866 in the United States. According to its constitution, its purpose was "to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex."

American literary regionalism, often used interchangeably with the term "local color", is a style or genre of writing in the United States that gained popularity in the mid-to-late 19th century and early 20th century. In this style of writing, which includes both poetry and prose, the setting is particularly important and writers often emphasize specific features, such as dialect, customs, history and landscape, of a particular region.

The American Woman Suffrage Association was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote in the United States.

the privileging of male- and masculine-centered ways of understanding the world

Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. The term, which comes from the Afrikaans word apartheid meaning "apartness", was used by the white-ruled country's Nationalist Party to describe its policies.

The concept of an archetype appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be a pattern of behavior, prototype, traditional form, or a main model that others copy.

Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assimilates the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.

An autobiography is a self-written biography of one's own life.

In the arts and in literature, the term avant-garde identifies a genre of art, an experimental work of art, and the experimental artist who created the work of art, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time.

The Baroque period was a time in European art and music that lasted from about 1600 to 1750. It was a period of highly ornate and elaborate architecture, art, and design that originated in Italy and spread across Europe.

The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. It originated in the 1950s with the Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.

Also known as the Nigerian Civil War, the Biafran war took place from July 6, 1967-January 15, 1970. It was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967.

The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from the incredible accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).

Byronic heroes are arrogant, intelligent, educated outcasts, who somehow balance their cynicism and self-destructive tendencies with a mysterious magnetism and attraction, particularly for heroines.

Achebe was the author of Things Fall Apart (1958). He is often referred to as the father of African literature.

The climax of a text is the most intense, exciting, or important point.

Colonialism is the pursuing, establishing and maintaining of control and exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group of people.

It has been described as poetry of the personal or "I", focusing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and personal trauma, including previously and occasionally still taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide, often set in relation to broader social themes.

The cripple punk movement is a social movement regarding physical disability rights that rejects inspirational portrayals of those with physical disabilities on the sole basis of their physical disability.

Devotional poetry refers to poems that express worship or prayer. They are most commonly religious in nature and sometimes include religious allusions or allegories.

A dialogue is a conversation between two or more people.

A dystopia is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives, opposite of a utopia, or perfect world.

In poetry, enjambment is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped.

The Age of Enlightenment was the intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries.

A euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

A person who lives outside their native country

Fantasy literature is set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds.

Folktales are stories in the oral tradition, or tales that people tell each other out loud, rather than stories in written form.

Foreshadowing is a narrative device in which a storyteller gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, and it helps develop or subvert the audience's expectations about upcoming events.

In United States history, the Gilded Age is described as the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era.

A political group during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention.

Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.

The Great Migration, sometimes known as the Great Northward Migration or the Black Migration, was the movement of six million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West between 1910 and 1970.

subjects of gynocriticism include: the history, styles, themes, genres, and structures of writing by women; the psychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the individual or collective female career; and the evolution of female literary tradition

The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a strong advocator for women's suffrage.

Imagery is visual symbolism, or figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions.

An inclusion rider or equity rider is a provision in an actor's or filmmaker's contract that provides for a certain level of diversity in casting and production staff. For example, the rider might require a certain proportion of actors or staff to be women, people of color, LGBT people or people with disabilities.

Intersectional feminism acknowledges that there is an inseparability of race, gender, sexuality, and disability (as well as other aspects of identity).  It shows that different kinds of prejudice can be amplified in different ways when put together.  This means that not all women face the same amounts of prejudice or discrimination.

Irony is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

The Jazz Age (aka the roaring 20s) was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles gained worldwide popularity. Originating in New Orleans as mainly sourced from the culture of African Americans, jazz played a significant part in wider cultural changes in this period, and its influence on popular culture continued long afterwards.

Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature. The awards were instituted in 1989.

Magical realism is a style of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to create a likeness or an analogy.

In poetry, metre or meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse meter, or a certain set of meters alternating in a particular order.

Modernism is an early 20th-century movement in literature, the visual arts and music, emphasizing experimentation, abstraction and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics and social issues are also aspects of the movement which sought to change how human beings in a society interact and live together.

In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience.

In literature, mood is the atmosphere of the narrative. Mood is created by means of setting, attitude, and descriptions.

A motif is any recurring element in a story that has symbolic significance or the reason behind actions.

A myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

A narrative is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these.

A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book.

A novella is defined as a work of narrative fiction that runs between 20,000 and 50,000 words (the average is around 30,000). Once a story exceeds 50,000 words, it is entering novel territory.

Objectification is the action of degrading someone to the status of a mere object.

The Ojibwe are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland covers much of the Great Lakes region and the northern plains, extending into the subarctic and throughout the northeastern woodlands.

Personification is a poetic device where animals, plants, or inanimate objects, are given human qualities.

A podcast is a digital medium consisting of audio (or video) episodes that relate to a specific theme.

An eminent poet traditionally appointed for life as a member of the British royal household. More broadly, the position has evolved to include a poet appointed to, or regarded unofficially as holding, an honorary representative position in a particular country, region, or group.

Poetry slams are competitive events where poets perform their work before a live audience and are judged by a panel.

Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands.

Posthumous is used to describe something that happens after a person's death but relates to something they did before they died.

Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often includes themes of both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB, later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner. The group sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colors, and complex compositions of Italian art. They rejected what they regarded as the mechanistic approach of Raphael and those who came after.

Prose fiction is narrative written without a metrical pattern that tells an imaginary or invented story.

Prosody is the study of elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments but which are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including intonation, stress, and rhythm.

A protagonist is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles.

A pseudonym is a fictitious name, especially one used by an author.

The Regency Period was from 1811 to 1820. This era is named the Regency Period because of the Prince Regent in Great Britain at this time. King George II was very ill and it was determined that he was too weak to rule. His son, Prince George, ruled as regent from 1811 until King George's Death in 1820.

A period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. Although there is no date range, the reign began around 1792.

Rhythm can be described as the beat and pace of a poem. The rhythmic beat is created by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line or verse.

A poetic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that turned toward nature and the interior world of feeling, in opposition to the mannered formalism and disciplined scientific inquiry of the Enlightenment era that preceded it.

Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Scansion is the practice of determining and graphically representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse. In classical poetry, these patterns are quantitative based on the different lengths of each syllable.

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction, which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It is related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres.

A work (such as a novel or film) that is partly autobiography and partly fiction is considered semi-autobiographical. It is a fictionalized account of the author's life.

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention in the United States. Held in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the meeting launched the women's suffrage movement, which more than seven decades later ensured women the right to vote.

A simile is a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox ).

Slant rhyme is a rhyming scheme with words that sound similar but not exactly the same. This can mean that the consonants match, but the vowels do not, or the other way around.

A slave narrative is a first-person record of slavery from captivity to freedom written by a former slave. Mostly written by former slaves who were either born in Africa or born into American slavery, slave narratives followed a similar structure, evolving into a literary genre.

A poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, typically having ten syllables per line.

Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film, theatre, and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Southern Gothic particularly focuses on the South's history of slavery, racism, fear of the outside world, violence, a fixation with the grotesque, and a tension between realistic and supernatural elements.

Speculative fiction is a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements.

Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities.

In poetry, a stanza is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation.

Structuralism is a method of interpreting and analyzing things such as language, literature, and society, focusing on contrasting ideas or elements of structure and attempts to show how they relate to the whole structure.

Suffrage is the right to vote in political elections.

Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas, or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP"; on maps, blue lines often represent rivers; and a red rose often symbolizes love and compassion.

A theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative.

Time's Up is a non-profit organization that supports victims of sexual harassment and amplifies the voices of women in the entertainment industry. It was founded in January 2018 by over 300 Hollywood celebrities in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement.

Tone is the attitude that a character or narrator or author takes towards a given subject.

Transcendentalism became a coherent movement and an organization with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 12, 1836. Transcendentalists are strong believers in the power of the individual and are primarily concerned with personal freedom.

An unreliable narrator is an untrustworthy storyteller, most often used in narratives with a first-person point of view. The unreliable narrator is either deliberately deceptive or unintentionally misguided, forcing the reader to question their credibility as a storyteller.

Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken form of language (also sometimes written), particularly when perceived as being of lower social status in contrast to standard language, which is more codified, institutional, literary, or formal.

The Victorian era spans the 63 years of Queen Victoria's reign over Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death in 1901. It was a time of great power and wealth for Britain as it expanded its empire across the globe.

Although poetry and plays were important in Victorian cultural life, the period is known as the great age of the novel. The serial form of publishing, in which installments of a novel were released at regular intervals, encouraged engaged audiences. Victorian era literature was characterized by depictions of everyday people, hard lives, and moral lessons.

Also known as the Woman's National Loyal League, this group was formed on May 14, 1863, to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery.