Sigma Tau Delta honors Women in Literature

Troy students shared their favorite pieces of literature written by women at a read-in for the English department’s honor society before spring break. 

The Women in Literature Read-In was held by Sigma Tau Delta, but all students of any major were welcomed to the event. This made a larger, much more diverse group of readers, listeners and authors. 

“It's just an opportunity to uplift voices that we don't usually see,” said Madeline Birge, a senior English major from Enterprise, Alabama. “We have a lot of different kinds of cultures and time periods that people read from.  

“We had from medieval literature to modern Russian literature; it was really fantastic.” 

Some of the women discussed were celebrated as pioneers of their era or style that went unrecognized for long periods of time. Dr. Theresa Johnson, Sigma Tau Delta’s sponsor, shared an example of her favorite early woman writer, Marie de France, who, despite using her real name, was still thought to be a man for a long period of time. 

“We don't know a great deal about her, and I'm happy to use that pronoun, because many people at the time had thought Marie can be also a male name, and so surely this was a male,” Johnson said. “But when you read her stories, it's so evident that she, indeed, was female, and one of our first shapers of Arthurian romance.” 

Sigma Tau Delta holds multiple read-ins like this one a semester, all with different themes. This one was to celebrate Women’s History Month, but they stressed that March is not the only time to be highlighting the works and accomplishments of women. 

“This is 31 days where we, not just uplift these voices and amplify them, but celebrate them and celebrate the difficulties that have been had in publishing women's work -- the long history of anonymous publications or pseudonyms, and hopefully now that's all getting a lot better,” said Sigma Tau Delta’s President Anais Shelley, who is a senior English major from Danzey, Alabama. “Even just recently, if you watch the Oscars, that was the first time I've seen Mary Shelley be properly credited for the Frankenstein story.  

“This is still a problem we have of women's voices and literature needs to be amplified. The struggles of women are 365 days a year and those problems are ever present so we should be highlighting them throughout the year as well.” 

She said the main goal of the read-in was to celebrate women’s contributions to an art form that allows them to speak about their struggles or create a world to escape from them, and to create a safe environment to explore those contributions. 

“It's very much ingrained in our culture – and this is a problem, not just here in the US, but all over the world – a long history of erasure and a long history of censorship and of oppression and suppression,” Shelley said. “This is a space for women's voices, a space for women to be empowered.  

“It's about making people feel comfortable, making people feel better talking about the issue, asking why we have this problem and making us more aware.” 

Events, like Sigma Tau Delta’s read-in, celebrating these women are attempting to take the first step in creating a culture of literature that fully recognizes and supports the works of women. They encourage students to be on the lookout for more read-ins and opportunities for literature discussion.