What can I do in COVE Groups?
Group members
We are a group of undergraduate students from Loyola University Chicago and the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. In Fall 2020, we are annotating Mary Seacole's The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857).
A "Creole" woman from Jamaica, Seacole traveled around the circum-Atlantic world and to the battlefields of the Crimean War, practicing as a "doctress" and an entrepreneur, witnessing a cholera pandemic and the dreadfully mismanaged war, and fashioning her public image in complex, intriguing ways. The publication of her memoir followed her having become a media icon of the Crimean War - and her return to London and poverty. By reading and annotating her work, we will help to recover for the Victorian Studies curriculum the literary voice of a Black woman who played a significant role in the image-making of the Victorian British Empire; of one of the better-known Black Victorians.
We aim to learn about Seacole's experiences, perspectives, and world; to examine these critically; and to share our personal reflections. We aim to learn not only about Seacole but from and about each other, and, in the process, to make the post-COVID-19-outbreak world seem a little bit smaller. We'll also explore why her story is accessible to us in comparison to the stories of many other Black and indigenous Victorians.
We will be guided in these endeavors by our instructors, Prof. Priyanka Jacob (Loyola) and Prof. Rebecca Nesvet (UWGB).